Part 8
The realization hung in the air like a heavy fog.
Leo wasn't just a victim of circumstance.
He was the key.
Emma finished the last stitch, knotting the thread with a sharp, clean motion.
She wiped the excess blood from Adrian’s skin and taped a thick sterile pad over the wound.
Adrian lay back on the cot, his breathing finally stabilizing as the local anesthetic took full effect.
"The medallion," Emma whispered, her voice trembling. "They're going to come for him. They won't stop."
"No," Adrian said, his voice returning to its grim, authoritative tone. "They won't. Viktor Volkov is a rabid dog. He knows that if I recover, I will erase his entire bloodline from this earth. He has to finish this tonight."
Suddenly, a weak, raspy cry broke the silence from the backseat of the car outside.
Emma’s maternal instincts flared instantly.
She dropped the medical tools and ran out to the vehicle.
She pulled Leo out of the makeshift blanket nest.
The moment her hands touched his skin, her heart sank.
He was burning up.
His face was flushed a deep, unnatural crimson, and his breathing was fast and shallow.
"Adrian!" Emma called out, carrying the baby back into the safehouse room. "He has a fever. A high one."
Adrian struggled to sit up, his face tightening with pain. "The poison from the nursery?"
"Yes," Emma said, pressing her lips to the baby's forehead. "The aerosolized toxin. His body is fighting the respiratory inflammation. If we don't get his fever down and clear his airways, he’s going to go into respiratory distress."
She frantically searched the safehouse medical kit.
Gauze, scalpels, stitches, antibiotics for adults...
Nothing for a six-week-old infant.
"There's no infant acetaminophen," Emma said, panic bleeding into her voice. "No nebulizer. No albuterol. I need liquid infant Tylenol and a saline solution to clear his lungs, Adrian. If his fever hits 104, he could have a seizure."
Adrian reached for his phone on the table, but the screen was shattered, dead from the fight in the nursery.
The safehouse landline was dead too—likely cut by his own security protocol when the mansion fell.
They were isolated.
"There’s a 24-hour pharmacy two miles north," Adrian said, trying to stand up. His legs buckled slightly, his face twisting in agony as the stitches pulled against his flesh.
"You can't drive," Emma said, stopping him. "You'll open the wound and bleed out before you reach the corner."
Adrian looked at his son, who was letting out tiny, pathetic whimpers, his little chest heaving.
The most powerful man in Chicago was completely helpless.
Again.
Emma looked from Adrian to Leo.
She remembered her daughter.
She remembered the feeling of waiting for someone else to save her child, and the crushing guilt when no one did.
She wasn't going to let history repeat itself.
Not again.
"Give me the keys," Emma said, her voice suddenly turning to steel.
Adrian stared at her. "Emma, if Volkov’s scouts are in the area—"
"They don't know who I am," she interrupted. "They’re looking for your SUVs. They’re looking for a giant man with a gunshot wound and an army of bodyguards. They aren't looking for a waitress in a beat-up gray sedan."
She extended her hand.
"Give me the keys, Adrian. Let me save your son."
Adrian looked at her hand, then at the fierce, unyielding determination in her eyes.
For the first time in his life, Adrian Romano trusted someone outside his bloodline.
He reached into his pocket and dropped the keys into her palm.
"Under the driver's seat," Adrian said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "There is a Glock 19. If anyone stops you... do not talk to them."
May you like
Emma took the keys, wrapped Leo in a fresh, dry blanket, and looked at Adrian one last time.
"Keep the door locked," she said. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes."
