Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Elena Rossi
Saint Jude’s Trauma Pavilion was transformed within minutes into a military compound. Black-clad operators with submachine guns secured every stairwell, elevator, and hallway. Outside the third-floor operating theater, the red light above the double doors burned like an accusing eye.
Marco stood with his palms flat against the frosted glass of the viewing gallery. Below him, seven surgeons and a dozen nurses moved in frantic, synchronized motion. Tess’s body was obscured by blue surgical drapes, surrounded by an array of pulsing monitors, blood warmers, and mechanical ventilators.
"Systolic is dropping to fifty! We've lost the pulse in the femoral artery!" a surgeon’s muffled shout leaked through the intercom. "Get the defibrillator! Clear!"
A violent jolt tore through Tess’s frail frame.
Marco flinched. His knuckles turned white against the glass. "Fight, damn you," he whispered, his chest tightening until he could barely breathe. "Elena... don't take her. Don't let her pay for my sins."
Behind him, soft footsteps approached. Arthur walked into the waiting gallery, carrying a hot cup of black coffee that Marco didn't even acknowledge.
"How long did you know, Arthur?" Marco asked, without turning around.
The butler bowed his head, his voice heavy with ancient sorrow. "Since the day Mrs. Elena passed, sir. She gave me the letter on her deathbed in Zurich. She made me swear on my own mother's grave that I would help Miss Alder secure the position when the time was right, and that I would never speak a word to you until blood was drawn."
"Why?" Marco turned, his dark eyes ablaze with agony. "Why would Elena keep her own sister from me? Did she think I wouldn't provide for her? Did she think I wouldn't protect her?"
"Because she knew you too well, Mr. Marco," Arthur replied softly. "You would have put Miss Alder in a gilded cage surrounded by fifty bodyguards. You would have made her a target for the Vance family and the Moretti syndicate. But more importantly... Mrs. Elena knew that enemies attack when you least expect it. Miss Alder didn't want your protection, sir. She wanted to be Luca’s shield."
"She was a school teacher, Arthur!" Marco yelled, his voice echoing off the sterile walls. "She taught literature! She doesn't belong in a firefight! Look at her down there! She took three rounds from hollow-point assault rifles!"
"And yet," Arthur looked through the glass, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, "when the bullets flew, your trained men were outside scrambling. It was the school teacher who covered your boy."
Marco swallowed hard, the bitter truth choking him.
The double doors of the operating room suddenly swung open, and Dr. Mercer, the chief of trauma, stepped out, ripping off his bloody mask and surgical cap. His forehead was slick with sweat.
Marco stepped forward immediately, towering over the surgeon. "Tell me."
Dr. Mercer took a deep breath. "We managed to repair the laceration to her liver and removed two of the three slugs. We stabilized her heart, but the third bullet..." He paused, his expression turning grim.
"Speak!" Marco growled.
"The third bullet fractured her fourth rib and rests less than two millimeters from her pulmonary artery. Operating on it right now would cause a fatal hemorrhage. She is in an induced coma, Mr. Rossi. The next forty-eight hours will determine whether she survives the systemic shock."
Marco’s heart plummeted. "Can she hear me?"
"Hearing is often the last sense to go," Mercer said softly. "Talk to her. But keep it brief. Her body is in critical failure."
Marco didn't hesitate. He stripped off his blood-stained jacket, donned a sterile yellow gown, and pushed into the ICU room where Tess lay connected to a web of life-support machines.
The room was freezing, smelling of antiseptic and ozone. Tess looked devastatingly small beneath the hospital sheets, her skin almost translucent against the dark tangles of her hair. The mechanical hiss of the ventilator sounded like a cruel countdown.
Marco pulled a chair to her bedside and sat down. For a long moment, the man who held the financial reins of half the city could only stare at her pale, calloused fingers—hands that had scrubbed his floors while carrying the weight of a sacred sisterly promise.
He reached out and gently took her cold hand into his.
"I know who you are, Teresa," Marco whispered, his voice trembling with an emotion he had locked away for years. "Elena told me everything. You kept your promise to her. You gave your life for my son."
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He brought her cold knuckles to his forehead, tears finally escaping down his rugged face. "Now it's my turn to keep a promise. You are never going to scrub another floor. You are never going to hide in the shadows of this family again. Fight this, Tess. Come back to us. Because whoever did this to you... is going to burn."
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