Chapter 4 - The Sound of a Beating Drum
The sunrise over Lake Michigan did not bring warmth; it brought a harsh, icy glare that poured through the glass of the ICU.
I had washed my face in the small stainless-steel sink of the waiting room, swapped my stained dress shirt for a dark cashmere sweater brought by my valet, and stood in the doorway of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
The room was filled with the tiny hum of specialized oxygen concentrators and warm incubators.
The head NICU nurse, a soft-spoken woman named Sister Mary with silver hair and kind, sharp eyes, gestured for me to enter.
"He's waiting for you, Mr. Vance," she said gently.
I stepped carefully over the tangle of power cords, feeling completely out of place. My hands, which had signed corporate warrants that destroyed entire companies, were trembling as I reached through the clear acrylic portholes of Incubator 12.
The baby was tiny. His skin was thin, showing delicate blue veins beneath the surface, but his chest was rising and falling with strong, rhythmic determination. He had a tiny CPAP mask over his nose, and a tangle of wires taped to his micro-chest monitoring his vitals.
As my finger brushed his small, warm palm, his tiny hand reflexively closed around my index finger. His grip was surprisingly fierce.
A lump formed in my throat so large I couldn't breathe.
"He's a fighter," Sister Mary murmured, standing beside me. "Just like his mother. When they brought her in last night, her arterial gas levels were almost incompatible with life. But she held on just long enough to bring him into the world."
"What are his chances?" I asked, my voice cracking.
"He was born at thirty-four weeks, Mr. Vance. His lungs are premature, but we administered two doses of surfactant to help them expand. His brain scans are clear. No hemorrhage. If we can keep him free of infection for the next forty-eight hours, he will thrive."
She looked at me, her eyes reading the exhaustion and guilt written across my face.
"Have you chosen a name for him?"
I looked at the tiny boy holding onto my finger as if it were the only anchor in a stormy sea.
"Leo," I said softly. "Leo Alexander Vance."
"A strong name," she smiled. "Leo means lion."
"He needed to be a lion," I whispered, tears finally slipping down my cheeks unchecked, dropping onto the acrylic frame of the incubator. "Because his father was a monster."
My encrypted phone buzzed in my pocket. I slowly pulled my finger from Leo’s tiny grip, stepped out into the hallway, and answered.
"Speak, Marcus," I said.
"It’s done, Julian," Marcus’s dry, icy voice came through the receiver. "We executed the short-sell on Chen Logistics at 4:00 AM overseas trading. Their stock crashed sixty-two percent in Frankfurt. By the time the New York Stock Exchange opens in two hours, the Chen family will be technically insolvent."
"And Madison?"
"She tried to board a private jet to Miami at 5:30 AM from Midway Airport," Marcus chuckled dryly. "Jonas and the State Police met her at the hangar. They found three million dollars in unregistered bearer bonds and two stolen medical files from Northwestern Memorial in her luggage."
"Where is she now?"
"In a holding cell at the Cook County Sheriff’s Department. Charges filed: corporate espionage, grand theft, and conspiracy to commit severe bodily harm through medical sabotage. Her father tried to call your office eleven times in the last hour. He’s begging for a meeting."
"Tell him," I said, staring through the glass at Elena’s ICU room, "that I will meet him in court. And when I am done with his family, they won't even be able to afford the bus fare out of this city."
I hung up the phone and walked back toward Elena’s room.
As I reached her bed, the cardiac monitor made a sudden, rhythmic shift in tone.
Beep... Beep... Beep.
The line on the screen wasn't the jagged, chaotic spike of a failing heart anymore. It was softening. The machine reading the ECMO flow showed that her native heart was beginning to contract on its own—weakly, faintly, but unmistakably trying to beat.
"Dr. Harrison!" the floor nurse called out, running into the room. "Look at the left ventricular outflow! Her stroke volume is rising!"
I rushed to the side of her bed, grabbing her hand once again.
"Elena," I begged, leaning down to her ear. "Elena, can you hear me? Leo is safe. He's breathing. He has black hair just like yours. He's waiting for you, baby. You have to come back."
May you like
Her long eyelashes fluttered faintly against her pale cheeks.
And then, for the first time in twelve excruciating hours, her fingers twitched inside mine.
