Chapter 3 The Baby Flatlined. 15 Doctors Gave Up. Then a Poor Nurse Said One Word: "Stop."
Chapter 3: The Second Attempt
The message arrived at 11:58 p.m.
The first attempt failed. The second won't.
For nearly a minute, Dominic Moretti stared at the glowing screen without moving.
The city lights beyond his office windows reflected across the glass like distant fires.
His expression remained calm.
Too calm.
The kind of calm that made grown men nervous.
Because everyone close to Dominic knew something important:
The more dangerous the situation became, the quieter he got.
A storm was building.
And somewhere in Chicago, someone had just made a fatal mistake.
They had threatened his family.
Again.
Dominic pressed a button beneath his desk.
Three seconds later, the office door opened.
Victor Russo entered immediately.
The scar-faced security chief looked at Dominic's face and knew something was wrong.
"What happened?"
Dominic handed him the phone.
Victor read the message.
His jaw tightened.
"Where did it come from?"
"Burner device."
Victor nodded.
"We'll trace it."
"No."
Victor frowned.
"No?"
Dominic took back the phone.
"I don't want the phone."
"What do you want?"
A cold smile appeared.
"I want the person holding it."
Meanwhile, twenty miles away, Claire Bennett couldn't sleep.
The guest room inside the Moretti estate was larger than her entire apartment.
The bed was soft.
The room was warm.
The sheets probably cost more than her monthly salary.
Yet sleep refused to come.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Leonardo lying motionless inside the incubator.
She heard the flatline.
Saw the gun.
Felt the terror.
The entire experience seemed impossible.
Just forty-eight hours earlier, she had been worrying about unpaid rent.
Now armed guards patrolled outside her window.
A mob king treated her like a protected witness.
And someone had murdered a hospital employee.
Claire sat up.
Something felt wrong.
Not dangerous.
Just strange.
The house was unusually quiet.
Too quiet.
Then she heard it.
Footsteps.
Soft.
Measured.
Outside her room.
Her pulse jumped.
The footsteps stopped.
Silence.
A long silence.
Claire stared at the door.
Her breathing slowed.
Nothing happened.
Then came three gentle knocks.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Claire froze.
The clock beside the bed read 2:14 a.m.
Who would be knocking at this hour?
A woman's voice spoke through the door.
"It's Isabella."
Claire relaxed slightly.
She opened the door.
Isabella stood in the hallway wearing a silk robe.
"You couldn't sleep either?"
Claire managed a weak smile.
"No."
Isabella nodded knowingly.
"Welcome to the club."
They walked downstairs together.
The enormous kitchen was empty except for a single lamp glowing above the island.
Isabella poured tea.
Claire wrapped both hands around the warm cup.
For a few minutes, neither woman spoke.
Finally Isabella broke the silence.
"You're afraid."
Claire laughed softly.
"Is it that obvious?"
"Yes."
The answer was immediate.
Honest.
Claire appreciated that.
"People are dying."
"Yes."
"Someone tried to murder a baby."
"Yes."
"And somehow I'm involved."
Isabella stirred her tea.
"You saved him."
Claire looked down.
"I got lucky."
"No."
The response sounded familiar.
Dominic had said exactly the same thing.
Isabella leaned forward.
"You noticed something fifteen specialists missed."
Claire remained silent.
Isabella studied her.
Then smiled slightly.
"Do you know what Dominic sees when he looks at you?"
Claire nearly choked on her tea.
"I don't want to know."
The smile widened.
"He sees someone who refuses to look away."
Claire didn't know how to answer.
Because maybe that was true.
And maybe that was exactly why she was in danger.
At 4:37 a.m., the first explosion occurred.
The blast shook the eastern side of the estate.
Windows rattled.
Alarms screamed.
Claire jumped from her bed.
Before she could reach the door, armed guards were already flooding the hallway.
Shouts echoed downstairs.
Someone yelled:
"Move! Move! Move!"
Claire opened her door.
A security officer immediately pointed.
"Inside!"
"What happened?"
"Inside now!"
The answer arrived a second later.
Gunfire.
Rapid.
Violent.
Close.
Very close.
Claire's blood turned to ice.
Another burst echoed through the darkness.
Then another.
Someone was attacking the estate.
Dominic was already moving.
The first explosion had awakened him instantly.
Years of experience made hesitation impossible.
He grabbed a pistol from the bedside safe and entered the hallway.
Victor appeared from the opposite direction.
"East perimeter breach."
"How many?"
"We don't know."
Dominic's expression darkened.
That meant professionals.
Amateurs got counted quickly.
Professionals disappeared into chaos.
Another explosion rocked the grounds.
Glass shattered somewhere below.
Victor spoke into his radio.
Multiple voices answered.
Confused.
Panicked.
The attack was coordinated.
Dominic understood immediately.
This wasn't about killing him.
It wasn't even about entering the estate.
It was a distraction.
A very expensive distraction.
Which meant the real attack was happening somewhere else.
His stomach tightened.
Hospital.
Leonardo.
"Victor."
The security chief looked up.
Dominic was already moving toward the stairs.
"Call the hospital."
Victor immediately understood.
His face paled.
"Oh God."
At St. Anne's Medical Center, the night shift was unusually calm.
Too calm.
Officer Daniels sat outside the neonatal intensive care unit scrolling through his phone.
The private security detail assigned to Leonardo remained in place.
Everything appeared normal.
Then the power failed.
The hallway went dark.
For exactly two seconds.
Two seconds was all it took.
Emergency systems activated immediately.
Lights flickered back on.
Monitors restarted.
Doors unlocked and relocked.
Most people barely noticed.
But one person had been waiting for that moment.
A figure dressed in hospital scrubs stepped from a supply closet.
Face hidden.
Movement precise.
Purposeful.
The individual pushed a medication cart toward Leonardo's room.
Nobody stopped them.
Hospitals were full of nurses.
Nobody questioned another nurse.
That assumption was about to become fatal.
Back at the estate, Dominic's phone rang.
Victor answered.
His expression changed instantly.
"What?"
Silence.
Then:
"When?"
More silence.
Victor slowly lowered the phone.
The color drained from his face.
Dominic already knew.
"What happened?"
Victor swallowed.
"There was a breach."
The world seemed to stop.
"Leonardo?"
Victor hesitated.
Just long enough.
That hesitation felt like a knife.
"We lost contact with the security team."
Dominic closed his eyes.
Only for a second.
When he opened them again, something frightening had changed.
The last trace of mercy disappeared.
"Prepare the cars."
Victor nodded.
Within sixty seconds, the convoy was moving.
At the hospital, chaos spread rapidly.
A nurse discovered the first body.
One of the security guards assigned to Leonardo.
Dead.
Inside a stairwell.
No gunshot.
No knife wound.
His neck had been broken.
Professionally.
Efficiently.
Silently.
Another guard was found unconscious near the neonatal wing.
A third had vanished completely.
Panic erupted.
Police flooded the building.
Doctors received emergency orders.
Entire floors entered lockdown.
And in the middle of the confusion, Leonardo's incubator stood empty.
The baby was gone.
Dominic arrived twelve minutes later.
The hospital looked like a war zone.
Police vehicles.
Ambulances.
Flashing lights.
Officers everywhere.
The moment he stepped out of the SUV, people moved aside instinctively.
No one wanted to be the person who delayed Dominic Moretti tonight.
He entered the hospital.
Victor followed close behind.
A detective approached.
"We're doing everything we can—"
Dominic walked past him.
The detective wisely stopped talking.
Inside the NICU, doctors scrambled around empty stations.
Monitors flashed.
Nurses cried.
Security personnel shouted into radios.
And at the center of everything stood Sophia.
Her hospital gown fluttered around her shaking frame.
Tears streamed down her face.
She looked broken.
Completely broken.
When she saw Dominic, she ran toward him.
"He's gone."
The words shattered something inside the room.
Sophia grabbed his jacket.
"They took him."
Dominic held her shoulders.
"Listen to me."
Sophia sobbed uncontrollably.
"He's just a baby."
Dominic's voice became firm.
"I will bring him back."
The certainty in his tone silenced everyone nearby.
Not confidence.
Certainty.
As though the universe itself had already decided.
Sophia looked into her brother's eyes.
And for the first time that night, hope returned.
Just a little.
Three hours later, a breakthrough arrived.
Not from police.
Not from security.
From Claire.
She sat in a hospital conference room studying surveillance footage.
Frame by frame.
Again and again.
Something bothered her.
Something everyone else missed.
Then she saw it.
A tiny detail.
The fake nurse pushing the medication cart.
The person's left wrist appeared briefly beneath the sleeve.
Just for half a second.
A tattoo.
Small.
Black.
Distinctive.
Claire paused the video.
Zoomed in.
And gasped.
She had seen it before.
Years ago.
Not in real life.
In a newspaper article.
An organized crime symbol.
Associated with one family.
One name.
The Rossis.
Claire stood so quickly her chair crashed backward.
"Victor!"
The security chief rushed over.
"What?"
Claire pointed at the screen.
His face darkened immediately.
Because he recognized it too.
For the first time, they had something.
A lead.
A real lead.
And somewhere in Chicago, the people responsible still believed they had won.
They believed Leonardo Moretti belonged to them now.
They believed Dominic would react with grief.
With desperation.
With mistakes.
They were wrong.
Because Dominic Moretti was no longer trying to protect his family.
Now he was hunting.
May you like
And the people who had stolen a newborn child had just become the most wanted targets in the city.
To be continued...
