Chapter 6 - THE RED HOOK VAULT
The rain on the roof of the armored ambulance sounded like nails dropping on sheet metal.
Blue emergency strobes painted the interior in rhythmic, pulsing waves.
Dr. Aris, Roman's private physician, worked frantically over Roman's bare chest.
Two portable defibrillator paddles were already charged and humming on the console.
"Blood pressure is sixty over forty!" Dr. Aris shouted over the siren.
"He's lost three units!"
"Push two milligrams of epinephrine! Hang another bag of O-negative!"
I sat on the jump seat beside the stretcher.
Leo was curled in my lap, wrapped in three heated blankets, sleeping deeply from the antibiotics we had given him twenty minutes ago.
My hands were still stained with Roman's blood.
I reached out with my trembling fingers.
I took Roman's left hand.
His skin was freezing.
His calloused fingers were limp, devoid of the terrifying power that had commanded Chicago an hour earlier.
"Don't die, Roman," I whispered against his knuckles.
"You haven't explained anything yet."
His eyelids flickered.
A faint, shuddering breath escaped his pale lips.
His gray eyes opened half a millimeter, searching through the sterile light until they found my face.
"The boy...?" he rasped.
His voice was barely a ghost of sound.
"He's here," I said, tears blurring my vision.
"He's safe. He's sleeping."
A tiny, almost imperceptible squeeze answered my fingers.
"Good," Roman breathed.
Then the heart monitor let out a long, continuous, terrifying tone.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
"V-fib!" Dr. Aris screamed, shoving me backward against the wall.
"Clear the bed!"
The paddles came down on Roman's chest.
THUMP.
His body arched violently off the stretcher.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
"Again! Charge to three hundred!"
THUMP.
Leo stirred in my arms, whimpering against my neck.
I covered his ears, burying my face in his hair, praying to a God I hadn't spoken to since Mark was buried.
Please.
Not him.
Not the man who saved my boy.
A ragged, irregular blip appeared on the green line.
Beep.
Beep... beep.
"Sinus rhythm restored," the nurse gasped, wiping sweat from her forehead.
"We have a pulse."
The ambulance took a sharp turn, tires squealing against wet concrete.
The siren cut off abruptly.
The heavy hydraulic doors hissed open.
We were not at a hospital.
We were deep inside an underground subterranean garage beneath a towering black skyscraper on Wacker Drive.
Dozens of armed men in tactical gear formed an impenetrable corridor from the ambulance bay to the private freight elevator.
Viktor appeared at my side, taking Leo gently from my arms into his massive, protective frame.
"He won't leave my sight, Mrs. Carver," Viktor said.
"The penthouse has a pediatric suite prepared."
They wheeled Roman onto the gurney, rushing him toward the double doors of the private surgical suite.
I followed, running in my bare feet across the cold marble.
The doors swung shut in my face.
The red light above the frame illuminated: SURGERY IN PROGRESS.
I slumped against the wall, sliding down to the floor until my knees hit my chest.
My clothes were soaked in rain, mud, and the blood of two different men.
An hour passed.
Then two.
At four in the morning, the elevator doors at the end of the private corridor chimed.
An elderly woman stepped onto the floor.
She wore a dark mink coat over an ivory silk dress.
Her silver hair was pinned back with diamond combs, her face lined with an aristocratic authority that demanded immediate submission.
Two guards bowed their heads as she passed.
She walked straight to where I sat on the floor.
She stopped two feet away.
She looked down at my bare feet, my torn blouse, and the dark blood crusted under my fingernails.
"You're the girl from the bakery alley," she said.
Her voice was like dry leaves scraping over marble.
"I am," I said, looking up into her cold, evaluating eyes.
"I am Teresa Vance," she stated.
"Roman's mother."
She reached inside her alligator handbag and pulled out a heavy manila folder.
She tossed it onto my lap.
"My son took three bullets tonight because of your late husband's debts, Megan."
"Before Roman wakes up, you need to understand what you're holding."
I opened the folder with numb fingers.
Inside lay thirty pages of typed transcripts, bank transfers, and high-resolution surveillance photographs.
The first photograph was taken six years ago.
It showed my husband, Mark Carver.
Standing on the private tarmac of Midway Airport.
And standing beside him, shaking his hand with an envelope of cash, was not Julian Cross.
It was David Kesler.
May you like
My restaurant manager.
The man who had fired me four hours ago for being forty-five minutes late.
