Chapter 11 - The Doctor Who Came for My Daughter
The first thing Adrian did was lock my door.
The second was drag a chair beneath the handle.
I stared at him.
“This is a hospital, not a siege movie.”
“Today it’s both.”
Marco’s men took positions outside while hospital security evacuated part of the floor.
Dr. Patel argued furiously with everyone.
“My patients are not chess pieces!”
“No one is moving Elena,” Adrian said.
“I decide whether my patient moves.”
“Fine. Decide she stays.”
Dr. Patel looked ready to commit homicide.
I said, “Can we focus?”
A contraction tightened through me.
Then another.
Too close together.
Dr. Patel immediately checked the monitor.
“Seven minutes apart.”
Adrian went pale.
“Is that bad?”
“At thirty-four weeks, yes.”
“Can you stop it?”
“We’re trying.”
The hallway suddenly erupted with shouting.
Marco’s voice.
A crash.
Then silence.
Adrian moved in front of my bed.
I grabbed his arm.
“You are not bulletproof.”
“Never claimed to be.”
“You behave like it.”
The door rattled.
Adrian drew a pistol from beneath his jacket.
Dr. Patel stared. “You brought a gun into my hospital?”
Adrian did not look away from the door. “Technically, Marco brought it.”
“This is not helping.”
A voice came from outside.
“Boss. It’s me.”
Marco.
Adrian opened the door carefully.
Marco entered with blood on his sleeve.
“Yours?” Adrian asked.
“No.”
“Bellini?”
“Not her.”
“Who?”
“A decoy.”
He showed us a photograph of an unconscious woman in scrubs.
“Former lab technician. Paid twenty thousand dollars to enter the floor wearing Bellini’s coat and badge.”
“Why?” Nora asked.
“To draw security east.”
My stomach sank.
“East from what?”
Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
“Rafael.”
Adrian turned.
“What about him?”
“Gone.”
The room froze.
“Gone how?”
“His room was empty when the nurse checked. IV cut. Window locked. Service door camera disabled.”
I looked at Nora.
“She took him.”
“Or he left,” Nora said.
Adrian stared at her.
“You think he’s working with Bellini?”
“I think we know less than we think.”
That had become the theme of my life.
Another contraction hit.
This one took my breath away.
Dr. Patel checked me.
“Three centimeters.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“No. She needs more time.”
“We may not get it.”
Adrian took my hand.
I squeezed hard enough to hurt him.
He did not react.
“I’m not ready,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“I don’t even have the crib assembled.”
“We’ll buy every crib in Chicago.”
“That is not the point.”
“I know.”
His voice cracked.
For once, neither of us knew what to do.
Then Nora’s phone buzzed.
A secure message from her federal contact.
She read it twice.
“What?” I asked.
“They found Bellini’s safe house.”
“Where?” Adrian asked.
“Evanston.”
“Get a team there.”
“They already did.”
“And?”
“Empty.”
She looked at me.
“But they found a nursery.”
My blood went cold.
“What kind of nursery?”
“Fully stocked. Bassinet. formula. newborn clothes. medical equipment.”
Adrian’s face went blank.
“She planned to take Lucia.”
Nora nodded.
“There were also forged custody documents naming a private adoption agency.”
I felt fury cut through my fear.
“She was going to steal my baby and make it look legal.”
“Yes.”
“Whose name was on the adoption?”
Nora hesitated.
“What?”
“Rafael Moretti.”
Adrian stared at her.
I whispered, “So he was involved.”
“Maybe.”
“Stop saying maybe.”
“I can’t give you certainty I don’t have.”
I hated her for being right.
A nurse entered carrying a sealed blood kit.
“Dr. Patel, we have a matched donor sample.”
He frowned. “From whom?”
“Rafael Moretti.”
Everyone stared.
“When?”
“Drawn twenty minutes ago in the blood bank.”
Marco said, “Impossible. He was already missing.”
The nurse looked confused.
“He came in with an escort.”
“What escort?”
“A physician.”
Nora grabbed the tablet.
“Show us security.”
Seconds later, we watched footage from the blood bank.
Rafael sat in a wheelchair, pale and weak.
Beside him stood a woman in a surgical mask.
She looked directly at the camera.
Then lowered the mask.
Mara Bellini.
My skin turned to ice.
Bellini smiled at the lens.
As if she knew we would watch later.
Then she wheeled Rafael out.
But the sample remained.
Dr. Patel said, “If this blood is truly his, it could help.”
Nora shook her head. “You cannot trust anything she delivered.”
“We test it independently.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Forty minutes for accelerated crossmatch.”
Another contraction came.
This time I cried out.
Adrian moved closer.
Dr. Patel’s expression became serious.
“Four centimeters.”
I stared at him.
“Forty minutes might be too long.”
He did not answer.
The fetal monitor alarmed.
Lucia’s heart rate dropped.
Nurses rushed in.
Dr. Patel shouted instructions.
I heard words through a roar in my ears.
“Persistent deceleration.”
“Prepare OR.”
“Notify NICU.”
Adrian’s face appeared above mine.
“What’s happening?”
Dr. Patel looked at us.
“We’re delivering the baby now.”
I grabbed Adrian’s shirt.
“No.”
“Elena, listen to me. She is telling us she cannot tolerate labor.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“Will she live?”
“We are going to do everything possible.”
They began moving the bed.
Adrian walked beside me.
At the operating room doors, a nurse stopped him.
He looked at me.
I reached out.
“Come with me.”
The nurse hesitated.
Dr. Patel said, “Gown him.”
Adrian Moretti, feared by half the city, looked terrified as they covered his hair and tied a surgical mask over his face.
Then he took my hand.
And for the first time since I had known him, there was nothing he could control.
As the nurses prepared me for surgery, I caught sight of myself in the dark reflection of a cabinet door. My hair was tangled, my face pale, hospital bands stacked around my wrist. Nothing about me looked like the woman who had spent months constructing a quiet anonymous life above a bookstore. That woman had believed control meant staying hidden. This woman was about to hand her body to strangers and trust them to save her child.
Adrian noticed where I was looking. “You’re beautiful.”
I laughed breathlessly. “This is not the time for lying.”
“I’m not.”
“You look terrified.”
“I am.”
“Good.”
His eyebrows rose.
“It means you understand the stakes.”
He squeezed my hand. “I understand one thing very clearly.”
“What?”
May you like
“Whatever happens next, you will never face it alone again unless you choose to.”
The doors to surgery opened before I could answer.
