Chapter 3 - The IV Line
By the third morning, the rain had settled into a steady, freezing drizzle that turned the lawn outside into a bog of black mud and floating hemlock needles.
Clara arrived at six-thirty. The house was quieter than usual, but the air felt charged, like the atmosphere in a bunker twenty minutes before a scheduled bombardment. Extra men were standing in the lower hallway, four of them wearing dark suits with high collars, their faces drawn and grey from lack of sleep.
When Clara reached the second floor, she found Matteo standing outside his father's room, talking in low, clipped tones to a short, bald man carrying an expensive black leather medical bag.
"He doesn't need a hospital," Matteo was saying, his voice a tight, dangerous whisper. "You put the line in here."
"Matteo, his veins are collapsed," the bald doctor said, wiping his brow with a silk handkerchief. "He's severely dehydrated. If I can't get a peripheral line in, he needs a central line, and I cannot perform a subclavian puncture in a carpeted bedroom with poor light! If he goes into sepsis—"
"He isn't going to a hospital," Matteo cut in, his hand coming down on the doctor's shoulder with a heavy, final thud. "You know what happens if his name shows up on an admission log at Rhode Island Hospital. The federal marshals have three subpoenas sitting on a judge's desk in Providence right now. The moment he hits an ICU bed, they place a guard at his door and declare him competent for deposition."
"He hasn't spoken in three years!" the doctor argued, his voice rising in panic. "He can't testify!"
"They don't care if he speaks!" Matteo hissed. "They just want him in a room where I can't keep them out!"
Clara walked straight past them, pushing the heavy oak doors open.
Lorenzo was in bed. His face was pale, almost grey, his high cheekbones standing out like white marble under his translucent skin. His breath came in short, dry rattles, his lips cracked and flecked with white residue. His right arm lay useless at his side, but his left arm was tucked tight against his ribs, defending his chest.
"Out," Clara said, turning to the doctor who had followed her in.
The doctor blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You're nervous, your hands are shaking, and you're going to blow his saphenous vein if you touch him with a needle looking like that," Clara said, setting her bag on the table. "Leave the IV kit, leave two bags of normal saline with five percent dextrose, and get out."
"Miss Jenkins," Matteo warned, stepping into the room. "Doctor Rossi is—"
"Doctor Rossi is sweating through his shirt," Clara snapped, turning on Matteo with a look so sharp it made the crime boss stop mid-sentence. "Your father is dehydrated because his swallowing reflex is failing, his kidneys are struggling, and he hasn't had adequate venous access in forty-eight hours. If you want him alive by tonight, let me do my job. If you want to argue about federal subpoenas, do it in the hallway."
Dr. Rossi looked at Matteo, then looked at Clara. Without another word, he set two bags of saline, a butterfly needle set, and a roll of surgical tape on the bedside table, snatched up his black bag, and hurried out the door.
Matteo stayed. He leaned his back against the closed door, his hands in his pockets, his jaw set like iron.
Clara didn't pay any attention to him. She washed her hands in the adjoining marble bathroom, scrubbed her forearms with antibacterial soap, and snapped on a pair of tight purple nitrile gloves.
She walked to the left side of Lorenzo’s bed.
"Mr. Moretti," she said softly, her voice dropping into the quiet, rhythmic tone she used for frightened ICU patients. "I'm going to put a small plastic tube into your arm. It's going to sting for three seconds, then it's going to give your body the water it needs. You're going to lie still."
The old man opened his eyes. They were bloodshot, surrounded by dark purple hollows, but the black fire in his pupils was still burning.
He looked at the clear plastic tubing in her hand. He knew what it was. He had spent months in hospitals three years ago after his stroke, poked, prodded, and drained by doctors who treated him like an expensive piece of failing machinery.
When Clara reached out to touch his left forearm, Lorenzo moved.
It wasn't a slow, feeble movement. It was the desperate, explosive strike of an old soldier who refused to die in a clean bed.
His left hand shot out, his long, bony fingers wrapping around Clara’s right wrist with a sudden, violent force that popped the purple nitrile glove. His nails bit through the rubber, digging straight into the soft skin over her radial artery.
"Father!" Matteo barked, stepping forward off the door.
"Don't move!" Clara yelled at Matteo without turning her head. "Stay right there!"
Matteo stopped. His hand was halfway inside his jacket, his face pale, his eyes wide as he looked at his father’s fingers digging into the nurse’s wrist.
The room went deathly still.
The rain outside hammered against the glass panes with a low, rhythmic drumbeat. The smell of cold air, wet leather, and ozone filled the space between them.
Lorenzo was breathing hard, his chest heaving under his silk pajamas. His fingers stayed locked around her wrist hard enough to leave deep, purple bruises. He glared up at her, his jaw trembling, his dark eyes screaming the rage he had kept locked inside his skull for three long, silent years.
He waited for her to scream. He waited for her to slap his hand away. He waited for his son to pull him back like a mad dog on a chain.
Clara didn't pull back. She didn't flinch. She leaned down until her face was inches from his, so close she could see the tiny red capillaries in his irises, so close he could smell the plain, unperfumed soap on her skin.
She looked straight into the eyes of the man who had controlled the underworld of New England for forty years.
And then, Clara spoke one word.
May you like
It wasn't loud. It wasn't angry. It was delivered with the absolute, quiet authority of a mother stopping a child at the edge of a road, or a nurse stopping a dying man from tearing out his own life support.
"Basta."
