Chapter 4 - The Steel Cage of St. Jude’s
The black armored SUV glided silently through the rainy city streets, flanked by two identical black sedans.
Delphine sat in the plush leather rear seat, shivering despite the blast of warm air coming from the vents.
She stared out the tinted window, watching the neon signs of the downtown district blur into streaks of yellow and red.
Sloan sat beside her, silent as a statue.
His phone buzzed continuously against the armrest, lighting up the dark interior with messages and incoming calls from syndicate capos.
He ignored every single one of them.
His eyes remained locked on Delphine’s profile.
“You lost weight,” he remarked suddenly, his voice cutting through the hum of the engine.
“Aside from the baby.”
Delphine did not turn her head.
“Rent is expensive when you work for minimum wage,” she said flatly.
“You had an offshore trust fund with five million dollars in it,” Sloan said, a sharp note of frustration entering his tone.
“You never touched a single cent.”
“Why?”
“Because it was soaked in blood,” Delphine answered, turning her head to meet his cold gaze.
“I told you three years ago, Sloan. I didn’t want your empire, and I didn’t want your money.”
“I wanted a normal life.”
“A husband who came home at six without blood on his cuffs.”
“A husband who didn't keep a shredder in the bedroom closet.”
Sloan’s jaw clenched, but he did not defend himself.
Instead, he reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a clean, warm linen handkerchief.
He leaned across the console and took her right hand.
Delphine tried to pull away, but his grip was firm.
Gently, almost reverently, Sloan began wiping the dried, crusted blood from her knuckles.
His touch was surprisingly tender for a man who ordered executions without blinking.
Delphine felt a knot tighten in her throat.
This was the man she had fallen in love with five years ago.
A protector.
A man who could burn the world down to keep the people he loved safe.
The problem was that the fire he started always ended up burning everyone around him.
“You did an impossible thing back there,” Sloan said quietly, focusing on cleaning each of her slender fingers.
“The paramedics said another thirty seconds and Cora’s brain would have suffered permanent damage from hypoxia.”
“I did what any competent ER nurse would have done,” Delphine said, pulling her hand away the moment he finished.
“No,” Sloan said, looking directly into her eyes.
“Most nurses would have frozen under the barrel of Bishop’s gun.”
“Most people would have walked away to save their own skin.”
“You never could walk away from someone who was bleeding.”
“That was always your greatest virtue, Delphine.”
“And your greatest flaw.”
The SUV slowed down, turning sharply into the underground ambulance bay of St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital.
The private wing of the hospital had already been completely militarized.
Armed men in dark overcoats stood at every entrance, checking badges and scanning vehicles with metal detectors.
The Marchetti family owned the hospital’s board of directors, a fact Delphine knew all too well from her past.
The SUV door was opened from the outside by Bishop.
“The fourth floor is secure, Boss,” Bishop reported, keeping his eyes politely lowered away from Delphine.
“Miss Cora is in Trauma Bay 1. Stable, intubated, and on an epinephrine drip.”
“Dr. Harris is waiting for your arrival.”
Sloan stepped out of the vehicle and extended a hand toward Delphine.
Delphine ignored his outstretched palm.
She grabbed the door frame and hoisted herself out of the vehicle, though her swollen ankles buckled slightly as her feet hit the slick concrete.
Sloan caught her waist immediately, preventing her from falling.
“Stubborn as always,” he muttered under his breath, keeping his arm firmly anchored around her waist as they walked toward the private elevator.
The elevator ascended directly to the VIP surgical wing.
The pristine white hallways smelled of antiseptic and ozone.
Nurses and doctors in scrubs flattened themselves against the walls as Sloan walked past, their faces tight with anxiety.
At the end of the corridor, behind heavy double doors, Cora lay in a private intensive care room.
Through the glass window, Delphine saw the young girl attached to a ventilator and multiple intravenous lines.
The stainless steel straw had already been replaced with a proper surgical tracheostomy tube, neatly bandaged with sterile gauze.
An older man with gray hair and gold-rimmed spectacles stepped out of the room, peeling off his surgical gloves.
Dr. Marcus Harris, the chief of surgery and the Marchetti family’s long-standing personal physician.
“Sloan,” Dr. Harris greeted him, his face lined with deep exhaustion.
“She’s out of danger.”
Sloan stopped in front of the doctor, his chest heaving with a deep, silent breath of relief.
“The damage?” Sloan asked.
“Minimal,” Harris replied.
“Her arterial blood gases look remarkably good.”
“Whoever opened the airway on site did a magnificent, textbook incision.”
Harris paused, adjusting his glasses as he finally noticed the disheveled woman standing beside the mob boss.
His jaw dropped in utter astonishment.
“Delphine?” Harris gasped, taking a step back.
“Good evening, Dr. Harris,” Delphine said, offering a faint, tired smile.
Harris looked between Delphine’s pregnant belly, her blood-splattered waitress uniform, and Sloan’s grim expression.
“You… you were the one who cut Cora’s neck?” Harris asked, his voice filled with professional awe.
“With a steak knife and a bar straw,” Sloan confirmed, a subtle thread of pride running through his voice.
Harris shook his head in disbelief.
“If you had hesitated by forty seconds, she would have arrested on the rug.”
“You saved her life, Delphine.”
“I just kept her alive until your team could do their job,” Delphine said quietly, leaning against the nurses' station counter for support.
Dr. Harris cleared his throat, sensing the volcanic tension simmering between the former couple.
“Cora will remain sedated until morning to allow the laryngeal edema to subside,” Harris explained to Sloan.
“We are running full toxicological screens on her blood to determine the exact compound introduced into her system.”
“Good,” Sloan said, his voice dropping into sub-zero temperatures.
“I want a full report on my desk by six AM.”
“And Harris?”
“Yes, Sloan?”
“Call Dr. Catherine Vance from Obstetrics,” Sloan ordered, gesturing toward Delphine.
“I want a comprehensive fetal ultrasound, blood work, and an emergency prenatal evaluation done right now.”
Delphine’s head snapped up.
“I don’t need an ultrasound, Sloan!” she hissed, stepping away from him.
“My prenatal care is handled at the community clinic on 4th Street!”
“A community clinic?” Sloan’s eyes flared with sudden, terrifying fury.
He stepped toward her, towering over her until she was forced to lean back against the counter.
“My wife is carrying a child in a free community clinic while I control billions in healthcare assets?”
“It’s not your child!” Delphine yelled, completely disregarding the hospital staff watching from down the hall.
Sloan didn’t blink.
He leaned down, his voice deadly quiet.
“We will find that out in approximately twenty minutes, Delphine.”
“And if that baby inside you is mine…”
May you like
He paused, his gray eyes piercing into the very depths of her soul.
“May God help you for hiding it from me.”
