Chapter 3 - The Red Floor
The trauma bay of Saint Jude’s Emergency Department was a storm of frantic, shouting voices, clattering metal trays, and the sharp, rhythmic beeping of cardiac monitors set to maximum volume.
"WE HAVE A CODE RED! TRAUMA ONE!" Nurse Cassie screamed as the automatic double doors burst open.
Four paramedics rolled the heavy yellow gurney into the room at a full sprint. Cynthia lay motionless on the mattress, her face chalk-white, an oxygen mask strapped over her nose and mouth, her navy scrubs cut open down the center to reveal blood-soaked pressure dressings packed tightly against her wounds.
"Female, twenty-eight years old, multiple gunshot wounds!" the lead paramedic yelled over the din. "One entry wound upper left chest, one lateral abdomen, one lower lumbar spine! BP is seventy over forty and dropping! Tachycardic at one hundred and forty! We’ve pushed two liters of saline in transit!"
"Get her onto the main table! NOW!" Dr. Preston Vance shouted, striding into the trauma bay, snapping on latex gloves.
He had been in his third-floor office when the shooting started. He was pale, sweating, his aristocratic demeanor completely shattered by the sheer chaos that had descended upon his hospital.
As the team moved to hoist Cynthia’s limp frame onto the stainless-steel trauma bed, a shadow fell across the doorway.
Carter Moretti stepped into the trauma bay.
He looked like a nightmare manifested in the sterile white light of the hospital. His tailored gray suit was soaked through with Cynthia’s dark red blood. Blood was smeared across his jaw, his hands, and his wrists. Two broad-shouldered men in black coats stood directly behind him, their suit jackets bulging suspiciously over concealed sidearms.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Vance yelled, waving his gloved hands frantically at Carter. "Sir, you cannot be in here! This is a sterile surgical area! Security! Where the hell is security?!"
Carter didn't move an inch. He stood in the center of the doorway, his broad frame completely blocking the exit. His face was devoid of all human warmth—a mask of terrifying, icy fury that caused the surrounding nurses to freeze in mid-step.
"If she dies," Carter said, his voice quiet, low, and vibrating with an authority that stopped the entire room in its tracks, "every single person wearing a doctor's coat in this building will follow her before sunrise."
Vance swallowed hard, a cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. He recognized Carter now. Everyone in the higher administration knew who funded the hospital’s private research wings through anonymous offshore accounts.
"Mr... Mr. Moretti," Vance stammered, his arrogance evaporating into pure terror. "We... we are doing everything we can. But she has three high-velocity gunshot wounds! She's lost massive amounts of blood—"
"Then give her yours," Carter snapped, taking three slow, deliberate steps toward the trauma bed.
He looked down at Cynthia’s pale, lifeless face. Her broad, beautiful features were still, her dark eyelashes resting against her cheeks, her lips blue. The blood covering his hands was hers—blood she had shed to keep lead from tearing through his own chest.
He reached out, completely ignoring the sterile field, and laid his large, rough hand against her cold cheek.
"Listen to me," Carter commanded softly, leaning close to her ear, his gravelly voice trembling with a terrifying blend of tenderness and desperation. "You saved my life, Nurse Quinn. You don't get to leave until I say so. Do you hear me? Fight."
He slowly straightened up and turned his icy gaze back onto Dr. Vance.
"Get the best trauma surgeon in this state into this room," Carter ordered, his voice dropping into an absolute register. "If I see you hesitate, Vance, if I see your hands shake while you work on her, I will personally throw you off the roof of this hospital."
"Y-yes, sir! Right away!" Vance squeaked, turning frantically to his staff. "Prep the blood warmers! Call Chief Surgeon Miller down from OR Three! Move! MOVE!"
Cassie, her eyes red from crying, worked frantically beside the table, hanging bags of O-negative blood. She looked up at Carter, seeing the raw, unyielding agony in the mafia boss's eyes as he stared at her best friend.
"She took those bullets for you," Cassie whispered, her voice shaking with anger and grief. "She didn't even know who you were. She just didn't want anyone to die today."
Carter slowly turned his head to look at Cassie.
"I know," Carter said quietly, his chest heaving as he stared down at the blood staining his hands. "She didn't know who I was. But she is going to learn."
He stepped back toward the wall, refusing to leave the room. He stood near the stainless steel cabinets, his broad back against the wall, his arms folded across his chest like an immovable statue of stone and iron.
"Mr. Moretti," Marcus, his second-in-command, stepped into the bay, whispering urgently into his ear. "The shooters were hitters from the Marcone family. We’ve secured two survivors in the basement. The police are establishing a perimeter outside."
"Tell the police to stay outside," Carter replied, his voice flat, devoid of mercy. "And tell the men in the basement that if Cynthia Quinn dies today, the Marcone family will cease to exist by midnight."
"Understood, boss."
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For the next four agonizing hours, Carter Moretti did not move. He did not sit down. He did not wash the blood from his hands. He did not answer his ringing phones.
He stood in the corner of the trauma bay, his storm-dark eyes locked onto Cynthia’s face, watching every breath she took through the mechanical ventilator, anchoring her to the world of the living through sheer, terrifying strength of will.
