CHAPTER 2: Blood in the Maternity Wing
CHAPTER 2: Blood in the Maternity Wing
The first bullet shattered the glass beside the nurses' station.
Screams ripped through the fourth floor.
Doctors threw themselves over rolling carts. Mothers clutched newborns. A nurse dropped an incubator monitor as alarms erupted across the maternity ward.
Inside Delivery Room Four, every heartbeat monitor began screaming at once.
Dr. Nathaniel Hayes didn't even look toward the hallway.
"Ignore the shooting," he barked. "The baby comes first."
Another burst of automatic gunfire answered him.
Mateo slammed the delivery room door shut and shoved a stainless-steel surgical cabinet in front of it.
"They're coming this way!"
Three Romano soldiers took positions immediately.
One behind the oxygen tanks.
One beside the hallway window.
One kneeling near the entrance.
Alessandro never reached for a weapon.
He looked only at Genevieve.
She was trembling violently, her face drained of color beneath the surgical lights.
"Sandro..."
Her voice barely existed.
"They're here because of me."
"No."
"They found me..."
"They found us," Alessandro corrected quietly.
A deafening explosion echoed from outside.
The security door at the end of the maternity corridor folded inward as if kicked open by a truck.
Smoke flooded the hallway.
Then came the voice Alessandro knew better than his own.
"Still protecting ghosts, Alessandro?"
Vincenzo Moretti.
Eighty years of loyalty had hidden thirty years of betrayal.
The old consigliere stepped through the smoke wearing a charcoal overcoat without a single wrinkle.
Around him stood nearly twenty armed men.
Not Romano soldiers.
Not Costa soldiers.
Mercenaries.
Professionals.
Faces without emotion.
Weapons fitted with suppressors.
Hospital security lasted less than ten seconds.
The last guard collapsed beside the elevators before he even finished drawing his pistol.
Vincenzo sighed.
"So much unnecessary courage."
One of the mercenaries handed him a silver cane.
He didn't need it to walk.
He carried it because powerful men enjoyed symbols.
He tapped it once against the polished floor.
"Find the child."
Inside the operating room—
Genevieve heard every word.
Her breathing became frantic.
"No..."
Dr. Hayes looked up.
"What child?"
"The baby..."
She grabbed his wrist with astonishing strength.
"They're not here for Alessandro."
Another contraction slammed into her.
She screamed.
Dr. Hayes checked the monitor.
His expression hardened.
"Fetal heart rate sixty-eight."
Silence.
Every medical professional in the room understood what that number meant.
The baby was dying.
"We cut now."
The anesthesiologist nodded.
"We don't have full prep."
"I know."
"The room isn't secure."
"I know."
"There are gunshots outside."
"I KNOW."
Dr. Hayes looked at every nurse.
"If we wait three more minutes, this child dies."
Nobody argued again.
Outside—
Mateo fired first.
His bullet struck one mercenary directly between the eyes.
The man fell before hitting the ground.
The hallway erupted into chaos.
Suppressors coughed.
Glass exploded.
Ceiling lights burst overhead.
Romano soldiers answered with disciplined precision.
These weren't gangsters.
They were veterans.
Every shot was calculated.
Every movement rehearsed.
Within thirty seconds, six men were dead.
Three from each side.
Blood spread across the polished hospital floor.
Vincenzo remained untouched.
He stood calmly behind a marble support column, almost bored.
"You disappoint me, Mateo."
Mateo reloaded.
"You should've stayed buried with Alessandro's father."
The old man smiled.
"I buried him myself."
Mateo froze.
"...What?"
"I also buried his grandfather."
Another pause.
"And now..."
Vincenzo's eyes drifted toward Delivery Room Four.
"...I'll bury his son."
Inside—
Alessandro heard every word.
His blood turned cold.
His father hadn't died from illness.
His grandfather hadn't died from age.
Every story...
Every funeral...
Every inheritance...
A lie.
He finally understood.
Vincenzo hadn't served the Romano family.
He had been replacing it.
One generation at a time.
Leo Bellamy.
The fake recording.
The Costa war.
Genevieve's disappearance.
Everything.
Every tragedy.
One architect.
One patient monster.
Alessandro whispered,
"You wanted me chasing the Costas..."
"So I'd never look at you."
Genevieve stared at him.
She saw something she had never witnessed before.
Not rage.
Not power.
Not violence.
Pure heartbreak.
Because the man who had destroyed their marriage wasn't standing beside the bed.
He was outside the door.
Dr. Hayes interrupted.
"Mr. Romano."
Alessandro looked up.
"If you love your wife..."
The doctor held out a pair of sterile gloves.
"...then help me keep her alive."
The room went still.
"I..."
"You can either become another distraction..."
Dr. Hayes stepped closer.
"...or become useful."
Alessandro had negotiated billion-dollar empires.
Ordered executions.
Ended wars.
But his hands shook as he pulled on surgical gloves.
"What do you need?"
"Stand by her head."
He obeyed instantly.
"Talk to her."
Genevieve looked away.
"I don't..."
"You don't have to forgive him," Dr. Hayes said while making the first incision.
"You just have to stay awake."
Genevieve's eyes filled.
Alessandro gently held her hand.
She didn't pull away.
Not this time.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
"For what?"
"For every night you cried alone while I thought protecting you meant keeping secrets."
Tears rolled silently down her cheeks.
"I should've listened when you asked questions."
"I should've shown you everything."
"I should've trusted you with the truth."
She closed her eyes.
"I believed you killed my brother."
"I know."
"I hated you."
"I know."
"I wanted our child to never know your name."
His voice cracked.
"I know."
She looked at him again.
"You never stopped searching?"
He laughed through tears.
"I searched morgues."
Another tear.
"I searched abandoned ports."
Another.
"I paid fishermen to drag rivers."
His forehead rested against hers.
"I searched places no husband should ever have to search."
Genevieve broke.
Her fingers tightened around his.
"I was so scared..."
"I know."
"I thought you were coming to kill us."
"I came to bring you home."
A metallic click echoed outside.
Mateo's eyes widened.
"GRENADE!"
The explosion tore through the hallway.
The blast ripped the delivery room door from its hinges.
Smoke swallowed everything.
Machines toppled.
Lights flickered.
Nurses were thrown across the room.
One surgical tray crashed onto the floor.
The operating table lurched sideways.
Dr. Hayes caught himself just before the scalpel slipped.
"No!"
The fetal monitor went flat.
One continuous tone.
Everyone froze.
For one horrifying second...
There was no heartbeat.
Dr. Hayes stared at the screen.
Then at the exposed uterus.
Then back at the monitor.
His face turned white.
"We're losing the baby."
Outside the ruined doorway, heavy footsteps approached through the smoke.
Slow.
Confident.
Deliberate.
A silhouette appeared.
Silver cane.
Charcoal coat.
A pistol fitted with a suppressor.
Vincenzo smiled as he looked directly at Alessandro.
Then he raised the gun...
—not at Alessandro—
—but at the operating table where Genevieve lay open in surgery.
"I told you," the old man said almost gently.
May you like
"The Romano bloodline ends tonight."
He pulled the trigger.
