Chapter 12 - THE CONTRADICTION OF MERCY
“Two clamps,” Del breathed, her knuckles white against the bed rails. “Or shoelaces. Anything clean to tie off the blood flow.”
Sloan reached down with his knife.
Without breaking eye contact, he sliced the leather laces from his tactical boots.
He held them up.
“Sterilize them,” Del gasped.
Sloan grabbed an unbroken bottle of surgical iodine from the doctor's tray and soaked the leather strands until they were dark brown.
The door to the ward kicked open.
Dr. Alva burst through, carrying a blue neonate trauma bag, flanked by Bishop with a smoking submachine gun.
“Clear!” Bishop yelled, taking up a defensive position at the doorway.
Dr. Alva dropped beside Sloan, pulling sterile gloves over her hands.
“Thank God,” Dr. Alva gasped. “Delphine, on the next contraction, I need a sustained push.”
Del’s body tightened into a bow.
She gripped Sloan’s hand with both of hers.
She bore down with every ounce of strength left in her soul.
Sloan leaned his forehead against hers, taking her screams into his own chest.
“Push, sweetheart,” he urged, his voice thick with tears. “Bring our boy home.”
Del pushed.
A sharp, searing pain tore through her hips.
“Head is out,” Dr. Alva announced calmly. “Sloan, reach your index finger in. Hook the cord over his shoulder.”
Sloan’s large, scarred fingers moved with impossible delicacy.
He slid his finger beneath the tight loop of the umbilical cord, gently easing it over the baby's tiny shoulder, freeing the airway.
“One more push, Del!” Dr. Alva called out. “All the way through!”
Del let out a final, primal cry of defiance.
She pushed with everything she had.
A warm, slippery weight slid into Dr. Alva’s waiting hands.
The room went dead silent.
No cry.
No sound.
Just the wind whipping through the broken glass.
Del’s head fell back against the pillow, her chest heaving, her eyes wild with terror.
“Why isn't he crying?” she sobbed. “Maria, why isn't he crying?”
The baby was tiny.
Dusky purple.
Completely limp.
Dr. Alva grabbed a sterile bulb syringe, quickly suctioning the mouth and nose.
She rubbed his tiny back vigorously with a warm towel.
Nothing.
Sloan stepped forward, his heart stopping in his chest.
“Do something,” Sloan whispered.
Del lunged upward, ignoring the agony in her body.
“Give him to me!”
Dr. Alva laid the tiny, fragile boy directly onto Delphine’s bare chest.
Del wrapped her warm hands around his ribs.
She tilted his head.
She covered his mouth and nose with her lips, giving two gentle, feather-light puffs of air into his underdeveloped lungs.
Puff.
Puff.
Then she tapped the soles of his tiny feet.
“Breathe, baby,” Del pleaded, her tears falling onto his pale cheeks. “Your daddy fought an army for you. Breathe for your daddy.”
A tiny chest shuddered.
A cough.
Then—
A thin, fragile, magnificent wail pierced the cold room.
WAAAAH.
The cry grew stronger.
Louder.
Filling every corner of the abandoned surgical bay.
Color rushed into the infant's skin, turning him from bruised purple to a radiant, healthy pink.
Del collapsed back onto the pillow, holding her son tightly against her heart, weeping with pure, unadulterated ecstasy.
Sloan sank to his knees beside the gurney.
He buried his face into the side of Del’s neck, his massive arms wrapping around both of them.
The man who had ruled the Boston underworld without ever shedding a tear wept like a child against his wife's collarbone.
“He’s alive,” Sloan sobbed. “He’s alive.”
“Meet your son, Sloan,” Del whispered, stroking his dark hair.
Sloan lifted his head.
He looked down at the tiny human resting on Del’s chest.
A shock of dark hair.
Tiny, perfect fingers that suddenly reached out and brushed against Sloan’s thumb.
The baby's hand gripped Sloan’s scarred finger with astonishing strength.
A ragged laugh broke through Sloan’s tears.
“He has your grip,” Del smiled through her tears.
A heavy thump outside the doorway interrupted them.
Bishop dragged a battered, bleeding figure into the operating room and threw him onto the floor.
Vincent Marchetti.
His cashmere coat was torn.
His silver hair was matted with blood.
He looked up from the linoleum, staring at the baby crying in Delphine’s arms.
Vincent’s face twisted into a mask of bitter, defeated malice.
“You won't... you won't survive the night, Sloan,” Vincent coughed, spitting crimson onto the floor. “The syndicates will never accept a bastard born in a charity hospital.”
Sloan stood up slowly.
He stepped away from the bed.
He picked up the tactical knife from the tray.
He looked down at his uncle with eyes that were blacker than the midnight ocean.
May you like
“He’s not a bastard, Vincent,” Sloan said, his voice cold as a winter grave. “He is the Don of the Marchetti family. And you are a ghost.”
================================================================================
