Chapter 7 - Between Life and Death
The emergency medical bay beneath the Calvetti private estate in Milwaukee was bathed in harsh, blinding white light.
The steady, sickening beep... beep... beep... of a heart monitor echoed off the tiled walls, growing slower and weaker with every passing second.
"Her blood pressure is dropping! 60 over 40!" a trauma surgeon shouted, his blue scrubs soaked in dark crimson as his hands worked furiously inside Clara’s opened shoulder. "She’s lost too much blood! Get another three units of O-negative right now!"
Outside the double glass doors of the surgical suite, Davis stood like a statue carved from dark stone.
He hadn't washed his hands. He hadn't changed his clothes. Clara’s blood was dried black across his chest, his forearms, and his face. He stared through the glass window, his broad shoulders shaking with silent, violent hitches of breath.
Behind him, sitting on a leather bench in the hallway, Toby and Bella were wrapped in warm blankets, clutching Mrs. Higgins’s hands. They refused to go to their room. They refused to sleep. They only stared at the glass door, waiting for their nanny to wake up.
"Davis," Mr. Sterling said softly, stepping up beside his boss. "The Moretti strike team was wiped out completely. We captured their lead captain alive. He confirmed Marco Moretti personally ordered the hit on the children to force your surrender."
Davis didn't turn his head. His pale blue eyes were fixed entirely on Clara’s bloodless, still face beneath the oxygen mask.
"Where is Moretti right now?" Davis asked. His voice was not loud. It was a flat, whispery void that held more death than a loaded gun.
"He’s hiding in his high-rise penthouse in downtown Chicago," Sterling reported. "He’s surrounded himself with fifty mercenaries. He knows he failed, and he’s waiting for the council to mediate."
Davis slowly raised his right hand, looking at Clara’s dried blood flaking on his palm.
"There will be no mediation," Davis whispered. "There will be no council. There will only be ashes."
Suddenly, inside the surgical room, an alarm began to screech.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!
"She’s flatlining!" the surgeon yelled. "Internal hemorrhage near the subclavian artery! Charge the paddles to 200!"
Davis slammed both fists against the glass door, cracking the reinforced pane. "CLARA!" he roared.
"Clear!"
Clara’s body jolted off the operating table as the electric current surged through her heart.
The monitor stayed flat. EEEEEEEEEE...
"Charge to 300! Clear!"
JOLT.
Nothing.
Inside the quiet hallway, five-year-old Bella broke away from Mrs. Higgins, ran up to the glass door, and pressed her tiny hands against the bottom frame, tears pouring down her cheeks.
"Miss Clara!" Bella sobbed, her sweet voice carrying through the small intercom speaker. "Please don't go! I drew another picture for you! Please come back to us!"
Inside the dark void where Clara’s spirit was drifting away from the agonizing pain of her shattered body, she heard a voice.
It wasn't the sound of angels or darkness.
It was the crying voice of a little girl calling for her. And beneath it, the deep, ragged roar of the man who held her heart.
BEEP.
BEEP... BEEP...
The heart monitor’s flat line broke, shifting back into a slow, fragile rhythm.
"We have a pulse!" the surgeon gasped, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Pressure is stabilizing! Get that artery clamped, now!"
Outside, Davis sank to his knees against the glass door. He buried his face in his bloody hands, his massive frame shuddering as he let out a choked, ragged sob of pure, overwhelming relief.
He raised his head, looking through the glass at her pale, breathing face.
"Thank you, God," he whispered into the sterile air. "Thank you."
Two hours later, Clara was transferred to a private ICU room, stabilized and wrapped in thick white bandages.
Davis sent the children to rest with Mrs. Higgins, promising them they could see Clara the second she woke up. Then, he sat down in the vinyl armchair beside her bed, taking her cold, limp left hand in both of his massive palms.
He pressed her fingers against his lips, weeping quietly into her skin.
"I tried to protect my heart by building walls, Clara," he whispered into the quiet room, his voice breaking with a tenderness he had never known he possessed. "I thought if I didn't love anyone, I couldn't be broken. But you... you sweet, stubborn, brave woman... you walked right through my walls and saved my soul."
He kissed her knuckles, his pale eyes burning with a dark, terrifying oath.
May you like
"Rest now, my love," Davis murmured, laying her hand gently back onto the white sheet. "When you wake up... the world that hurt you will no longer exist."
He stood up, pulled a silver pistol from his holster, racked the slide with a sharp click, and walked out of the room into the dark.
