d.A little girl picking through hospital trash warned the mafia boss not to take his medicine and exposed the doctor who killed his father

By two o’clock that afternoon, Street Grace Memorial Hospital operated under a cloud of unspoken dread.

Dr. Harold Whitmore sat in his corner office on the fourth floor. At sixty-two, with neatly trimmed silver hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a tweed cardigan over his scrubs, he looked like the embodiment of medical compassion. On his desk sat a framed photograph of himself, Antonio Marconi, and a young Levi fishing on Lake Michigan thirty years ago.

The heavy mahogany door opened without a knock.

Sal Ruso stepped inside first, locking the door behind him and pulling the blinds shut.

Whitmore looked up, frowning. "Sal? What is the meaning of this? Levi missed his nine o’clock appointment today. I've been trying to call his office—"

"He knows," Sal said simply.

Whitmore’s face didn't break immediately, but his fingers twitched over his fountain pen. "Knows what? Is Levi alright?"

Levi walked into the room from the private adjoining hallway. He wasn't wearing his suit jacket anymore. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing the thick scars on his forearms.

He didn't say a word. He walked to Whitmore’s desk, picked up the framed photograph of his father, and looked at it for a long, agonizing moment.

"Antonio trusted you, Harold," Levi said softly. "When the Outfit wanted to poison the hospital's water supply in '98, my father put three bodies in the river to protect your clinic."

"Levi, what are you talking about?" Whitmore stammered, standing up. "You’re under immense stress. Your bloodwork—"

CRASH!

Levi slammed the heavy glass picture frame onto the desk, shattering it into a thousand pieces. He reached across the debris, grabbed Whitmore by his collar, and dragged the older doctor over the desk, pinning him against the wall.

Whitmore gasped for air, his glasses falling to the carpet. "Levi! Please!"

"Digitoxin-9," Levi growled, his face inches from Whitmore’s trembling nose. "Mixed with the New York formula. Three days, maybe seven. It worked eight years ago. The son won’t escape either."

Whitmore’s eyes went completely wide. The color drained from his skin until he looked like a corpse. "How... how do you..."

"Eight years ago, you killed my father," Levi said, his grip tightening until Whitmore’s face turned blue. "You sat at his funeral. You cried on my shoulder. You took my money for eight years while feeding me micro-doses of poison every single morning. Who paid you, Harold?"

"I can't!" Whitmore choked out, tears bursting from his eyes. "They'll kill my daughter! They'll kill my grandchildren!"

Sal stepped forward, pulling a heavy tactical combat knife from his belt and setting it on the desk. "The Boss asked you a question, Doc. You answer him, or we take this conversation down to the boiler room."

"The Moretti family!" Whitmore sobbed, breaking completely. "The New York syndicate! Dominic Moretti! He bought the hospital’s board five years before your father died! He wanted the Calumet shipping docks! Antonio wouldn't sell, so Dominic offered me two million dollars and my family’s safety to change his IV drip!"

Levi’s chest heaved. "And me? Why poison me slowly?"

"Because Dominic didn't want a war!" Whitmore cried out. "If you died in a drive-by, the Chicago families would have burned New York to the ground! But if you died of the same inherited heart disease as your father, the Marconi empire would break apart naturally from within! Dominic’s son, Vincent Moretti, was supposed to step in and buy your dock shares next month!"

Levi stared at the pathetic, weeping old man he had trusted like an uncle.

"Who was the second man behind the dumpster last night?" Levi demanded. "The man who brought you the New York formula?"

"Dr. Julian Vance!" Whitmore gasped. "He’s Moretti’s private chemist! He flew in from Manhattan yesterday morning! He’s staying at the Drake Hotel!"

Levi released his grip. Whitmore crumpled to the floor, coughing violently and clutching his throat.

Levi wiped his hands with a handkerchief from his pocket and tossed it onto the doctor's lap.

"Sal," Levi commanded without looking back. "Put him in the safehouse cellar beneath the docks. Keep him alive. Strip his medical license, seize his bank accounts, and make sure his family is monitored. He doesn't see the sun again until this is over."