Chapter 2 - The Resuscitation WarThe sound of rotor blades tore through the quiet morning sky over Brownsville, shaking dust from the crumbling brick tenements and rattling the loose panes of glass in Lena’s apartment. Within eight minutes of Nico’s call, three armed men in black tactical gear kicked the apartment door entirely off its hinges, securing the perimeter before a frantic, silver-haired doctor rushed in carrying a heavy aluminum trauma case.
"Clear the bed!" Dr. Richard Vance barked, dropping to his knees beside Lena without a second glance at the mafia boss standing frozen in the corner.
Bruno let out a furious, thunderous roar, lunging toward the doctor with jaws wide.
"Bruno, down!" Nico shouted, his voice cracking with an authority that defied the chaos.
The mastiff froze mid-air, its massive body hovering inches from the doctor before it dropped back onto all fours, casting one frantic, pleading look at Nico as if begging him to fix what he had broken.
"V-fib! Her heart just stopped!" Vance yelled, ripping open Lena's shirt and slamming the pads of the defibrillator against her sunken chest. "Charge to two hundred! Clear!"
The electrical current surged through her body, causing her frail frame to violently arch off the mattress. The room smelled of ozone and ancient dust.
"Nothing! Charge again! Three hundred!"
Outside in the hallway, Tommy Ricci arrived with a squad of heavy-set enforcers carrying portable oxygen tanks, intravenous drips, and surgical trays scavenged from a private clinic in downtown Brooklyn. They stood in stunned silence, watching their ruthless, untouchable boss standing in a squalid, peeling room, his tailored vest stained with dust, staring at a dying girl as if his own soul were being ripped out through his chest.
"Come on, damn you, come on," Vance muttered frantically, pressing his palms against her chest in a relentless rhythm of CPR. One minute. Two minutes. Three eternity-long minutes ticked by under the flickering light of the ceiling fan.
Just as Vance began to lower his hands, a faint, erratic blip stuttered across the portable monitor they had hooked up to her arm.
Beep... beep... bee-eep.
"We got a rhythm," Vance exhaled, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his bloodstained sleeve. "She's stable—barely. But her heart is working on borrowed time. We need to move her to the private surgical wing at St. Jude's immediately. If she stays in this room for another hour, she's gone."
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Nico didn't blink. He walked forward, gently scooping Lena’s feather-light, lifeless-looking body into his arms as if she were made of spun glass. The four-thousand-dollar suit he wore was ruined by her sweat and dirt, but he didn't care.
"Move," Nico commanded, stepping past his bewildered men. "If anyone gets in our way—rivals, cops, federal agents—kill them. Leave no survivors."
