Chapter 3 - The Sanctuary of St. CatherineSt. Catherine Medical Center was locked down tighter than a federal penitentiary.
Sixteen armed enforcers wearing black tactical vests and carrying submachine guns lined the corridors of the private fourth-floor wing. The chief trauma surgeon, Dr. Samuel Evans, stood outside Operating Room 3 wiping sweat from his forehead with a sterile towel, his hands shaking slightly.
"How is she, Samuel?" Dominic demanded, stepping out of the elevator. He hadn't changed his clothes. His tuxedo jacket and shirt were stiff with Clara’s dried blood.
"She’s alive, Dominic, but barely," Evans said, his voice grim. "Seven entry wounds. Two shattered ribs, a punctured right lung, and internal bleeding that nearly stopped her heart twice on the table. We managed to remove the slugs, but she’s on life support with a tube down her throat. To be frank... she has maybe a ten percent chance of surviving the night."
Dominic didn't flinch. He didn't look away. He stared through the reinforced glass window of the ICU at the fragile, bruised figure lying motionless beneath a nest of white tubes and flashing monitors.
Isabella walked up behind him, resting a trembling hand on his bloody sleeve. "She saved my life, Dominic. If she dies... we owe her a debt that can never be paid."
"She won't die," Dominic said, his voice dropping into a dark, absolute register that brooked no argument. "Death doesn't get to take her. Not yet."
He turned to his second-in-command, Enzo, who stood waiting in the shadows. "Find the cleaner who leaked her schedule to the Costa faction. I want him skinned, salted, and hung from the Brooklyn Bridge by sunrise."
"Done, Boss," Enzo replied sharply. "And Victor Costa?"
"Costa thinks he just started a war," Dominic murmured, pulling out his phone. "Tell the squad leaders to mobilize every asset we have in Manhattan and Queens. By tomorrow morning, the Costa family won't even exist in history books."
"Boss... there’s one more thing," Enzo hesitated, holding up a heavy, silver chain with an antique pendant shaped like an intricate compass gear. "We found this around her neck when the nurses cut her uniform off. Our forensic tech ran a quick diagnostic on it. It’s not just jewelry. It’s an encrypted microchip containing every single financial ledger from Victor Costa’s offshore shell accounts."
Dominic stared at the pendant in Enzo’s hand.
The missing ledger. The very thing he had been hunting for two years. Clara’s father hadn't just hidden it; he had given it to his daughter without her ever knowing she was walking around with a target painted on her back.
Dominic slowly closed his hand around the silver pendant, feeling the cold metal bite into his palm.
He had brought Clara into the crosshairs. He had used her as bait. And she had taken seven bullets meant for his mother without knowing a single thing about his world.
"Marry her," Isabella suddenly whispered softly.
Dominic turned to look at his mother, stunned. "Mother, what are you talking about?"
"You heard me," Isabella said, her eyes flashing with fierce determination. "She has no family except a sick mother in Cleveland. She has no protection. If Victor Costa realizes she survived the hit, he’ll send another cleaner through these hospital doors. But if she is your wife... under New York state law, she cannot be compelled to testify against you, her medical privacy is ironclad, and anyone who comes for her has declared total war on the entire Rossi syndicate."
Dominic stared at the ICU door, his mind racing through the legal and tactical implications. It was insane. Marrying an unconscious, dying waitress he had known for forty minutes was a strategic nightmare.
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It was also the only way to keep her alive.
"Enzo," Dominic ordered without breaking eye contact with Clara’s pale face. "Call Father Thomas. Tell him to bring the paperwork. We’re having a wedding tonight."
