Chapter 2 - The Midnight Heist
The abandoned east wing of St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital smelled of dust, old linoleum, and stale bleach. Closed down two years prior due to budget cuts, its operating rooms were dark tombs of covered equipment and disconnected monitors. It was the perfect place to hide a man the world wanted dead.
Claire Jenkins pushed the squeaking gurney down the dim corridor, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. Beside her, Leo Vance, the terrified first-year surgical resident, was panting under the weight of a heavy mobile supply cart he had intercepted from the central supply room.
On the gurney, Nicholas Russo lay perfectly still, his breathing shallow and rattling. Ten minutes ago, while Dr. Caldwell was distracted in the lobby fabricating a transfer report for the non-existent ambulance, Claire and Leo had slipped into Trauma Bay One, decoupled Nicholas from the main monitors, and wheeled him out through the soiled utility exit. It was a career-ending felony if they were caught, but Claire knew that staying meant participating in a murder.
"Claire, this is insane," Leo whispered, his voice cracking as they pushed the gurney into Operating Room 4, the only room with a functional backup generator light. "If Dr. Caldwell finds out, he won't just fire us. The people he's working for... they'll kill us. Look at this man! He's the head of the Russo syndicate. We're harboring a terrorist."
"We're saving a patient, Leo," Claire snapped, her fingers already tearing away the blood-soaked field dressings from Nicholas's chest. "We took an oath. The politics of who he is outside these walls don't matter right now. Look at his pressure."
The small portable monitor Leo had hooked up flashed a terrifying warning: 62/38.
"He's slipping into irreversible hemorrhagic shock," Leo stuttered, his gloved hands trembling violently as he opened the surgical tray. "I... I've never done a thoracotomy without a senior attending present. Claire, I'm just a resident. If I nick the hilum, he bleeds out in twenty seconds."
Suddenly, a heavy, blood-streaked hand shot up from the gurney. Nicholas’s grip clamped around Leo’s wrist with surprising, desperate strength. His dark, feverish eyes flared open through the haze of agony.
"Do it, kid," Nicholas rasped, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that seemed to vibrate through the empty room. "Cut me open... or I promise you, the people outside will make you wish you died on this table."
Leo swallowed hard, looking from the mafia boss to Claire. Claire gave him a firm, unyielding nod. "I've got the suction and the blood packs, Leo. You know the anatomy. Be the surgeon you trained to be."
Nicholas’s grip loosened, his eyes rolling back as unconsciousness claimed him once more.
"Anesthetic hanging," Claire announced, spiking a bag of propofol and adjusting the IV line. "Starting the first two units of O-negative blood under pressure. Leo, take the scalpel."
The room grew instantly quiet, save for the rhythmic, sluggish beep of the cardiac monitor and the steady hum of the rain outside. Leo took a deep breath, his hand stabilizing as the surgical instinct took over. He made the long, sweeping incision across the left fifth intercostal space.
Blood erupted from the chest cavity, pooling in the pleural space. "Suction!" Leo yelled.
Claire jammed the tonsil tip suction into the wound, the machine roaring as it cleared the field. "I see the intercostal artery," Leo muttered, his forceps plunging into the chest. "Clamp!"
Claire placed the instrument precisely into his palm. With a metallic click, the primary bleeder was secured. But as Leo reached deeper into the chest to locate the bullet that had pierced the lung lining, the heavy double doors of the abandoned wing distant corridor creaked open.
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Heavy, deliberate footsteps began echoing down the hallway.
Claire froze, her hand hovering over the surgical tray. The footsteps were too heavy to belong to a nurse. They were searching the rooms one by one. Dr. Caldwell and his hired killers had realized the King of Chicago was gone.
