Chapter 3 - The Doctor’s Sentence
The pediatric intensive care unit’s senior physician, Dr. Alan Vance—no relation to the Swiss banking family, thankfully—wiped his glasses with a paper towel as he stepped into the small consultation room attached to Ward 204.
He was a tired-looking man in his late fifties with graying temples and a white coat that looked like it had been slept in. He glanced at Nico, who was standing by the window with his arms crossed, radiating an aura of disciplined menace that made the fluorescent lights overhead seem to flicker. Then he looked at me.
"Mrs. Falcone—or, Miss Miller, as your chart says," Dr. Vance corrected himself, dropping his gaze to the clipboard in his hands.
"Miller," I said quickly. "Just Claire Miller."
Nico’s jaw tightened at the name, but he didn't interrupt.
Dr. Vance sighed, setting the clipboard down on the laminate table. "I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you. Your son has contracted a virulent strain of community-acquired methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus—MRSA—that has rapidly progressed into necrotizing pneumonia. His left lung is partially collapsed, and the infection is starting to overwhelm his immune system."
The medical terms hit my ears like a physical blow. I had heard words like pneumonia before, but necrotizing—tissue dying, rotting away from the inside—was a word belonging to horror stories, not to a three-year-old boy who had been asking for blueberry pancakes just forty-eight hours ago.
"What are our options?" Nico asked. His voice was dangerously calm.
"We’ve put him on broad-spectrum intravenous antibiotics," Dr. Vance replied, looking up to meet Nico’s piercing gaze. "Vancomycin combined with clindamycin. But given the aggressive nature of this particular strain, it’s not clearing the tissue fast enough. He needs a specialized surgical intervention to drain the pleural cavity, and frankly, St. Catherine’s doesn't have the pediatric thoracic specialist on staff to perform it safely on a child of his age."
My heart stopped. "Then transfer him. Call another hospital—Children’s Memorial downtown."
Dr. Vance shook his head slowly, a grim expression settling over his features. "We tried. Children’s Memorial is at maximum capacity with an outbreak of RSV. Even if we could secure a bed, the transport team says he’s too unstable to move. If we put him in an ambulance right now, his blood pressure will drop, and he won't survive the twenty-minute drive."
"Then fly someone in," Nico commanded, his voice dropping an octave into the register of a man who owned cities. "Get the best pediatric thoracic surgeon in the country on a private jet out of Boston or Johns Hopkins. Whatever it costs, double it. If they need an armed escort from the tarmac, my men will provide it."
Dr. Vance blinked, startled by the casual authority in Nico’s tone. "Mr... Falcone, is it? Specialized surgeons don't just drop out of the sky on two hours' notice. And even if we could find one willing to fly in at dawn, hospital bureaucracy—"
Nico didn't let him finish. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a heavy gold-plated card embossed with a private encrypted phone number, and dropped it onto the laminate table with a sharp clack.
"You aren't dealing with hospital bureaucracy anymore, Doctor," Nico said softly, stepping closer to the desk until Dr. Vance was forced to lean back in his chair. "You are dealing with me. You have thirty minutes to locate the top three pediatric surgeons in North America. Call them. Tell them Marcus Vance—no, tell them the Falcone Syndicate is chartering a Gulfstream G650 to pick them up from their front lawns. If they hesitate, tell them their hospitals will receive a very generous multi-million-dollar endowment before breakfast, provided they are on that plane."
The doctor stared at the gold card, then up at Nico. He swallowed hard, recognizing the terrifying reality of the man standing in front of him.
"I'll... I'll make the calls," Dr. Vance stammered, grabbing the card as if it might burn his fingers.
"Do it now," Nico said.
As the doctor practically bolted from the consultation room, I sank into one of the plastic chairs, my hands trembling uncontrollably. For two years, I had believed that running away from Nico meant escaping the violence, the darkness, and the terrifying reach of his world.
May you like
And now, watching him bend the entire medical infrastructure of the state to his will with a single gold card, I realized a horrifying truth:
My son’s life was currently being held together by the very monster I had tried so desperately to forget.
