Chapter 1 - The Choice at the Edge of Life
The phone in Dela’s pocket vibrated a second time. The screen flashed with the name of her sister, Maya, who was babysitting her four-year-old son, Leo.
Under normal circumstances, Dela would have answered instantly. Leo’s severe, brittle asthma meant that a phone call from Maya usually signaled an emergency—a wheeze that wouldn't quit, a blue tint around his lips, or a frantic rush to an emergency room Dela couldn't afford.
But right now, Liam Brennan’s femoral artery was pulsing life out onto a concrete floor.
"Who's calling you?" Salvatore demanded, his voice a low, dangerous rumble right behind her shoulder.
"My family," Dela said, her voice dropping into a flat, icy calm she hadn't used since her days in the trauma bay at Chicago General. She silenced the phone without looking at the screen and thrust it back into her pocket. "If I look at that phone, your brother dies. If I answer it, he dies. Hold him down."
Salvatore didn't argue. He signaled two of his largest men, who immediately clamped their heavy hands onto Liam’s shoulders and chest.
Dela dropped to her knees on the blood-slicked floor. She grabbed a pair of industrial shears from her janitorial supply cart and sliced Liam’s trousers open from cuff to hip. The wound was horrific—a jagged, tear-shaped entry point high on his inner thigh, dark crimson blood spurting in rhythmic, alarming gushes.
"He’s in hypovolemic shock," Dela muttered, her mind stripping away her janitor's uniform and stepping back into the scrub suit she had worn for six years. "His pressure is dropping. I need clean towels, a belt, a flashlight, and boiling water if you have it. Move!"
The thick-necked guard—whose name was Marco—hesitated, looking at Salvatore for permission.
"You heard her!" Salvatore roared, his voice echoing off the corrugated steel walls of the warehouse. "Get everything she asked for! Now!"
Within seconds, men who usually dealt in extortion and smuggling were running through the warehouse like frantic orderlies.
Dela leaned her full body weight into Liam’s groin, pressing the heel of her hand directly onto the femoral pressure point against his pelvic bone. Liam groaned, his body violently arching off the table despite the men holding him down. His eyes rolled back into his head, showing only the whites.
"Keep him still!" Dela shouted. "If he moves and I lose pressure, he’ll bleed out in thirty seconds!"
Salvatore stepped up to the head of the table. The feared mob boss, a man who commanded an empire of violence across Chicago, leaned down and grabbed his younger brother’s face between his broad, calloused palms.
"Liam, look at me," Salvatore pleaded, his voice breaking with a raw, terrifying vulnerability. "Look at Sal. Stay with me, kid. Don't you dare close your eyes."
Dela’s hands were already numb from the sheer force required to compress the artery. She looked at Salvatore, taking in the terror in his gray eyes. She recognized that look. It was the same expression she saw in her own mirror every time Leo struggled to take a breath.
"I need a tourniquet," Dela said, her sweat dripping onto the floor. "A belt. Give me your belt, Salvatore."
Salvatore pulled off his heavy leather belt with a single, violent motion and slapped it into her bloody palm.
Dela wrapped the belt high around Liam’s upper thigh, loop-threading it and improvising a windlass with a heavy steel wrench Marco shoved into her hand. She twisted the wrench with every ounce of strength in her slender arms, tightening the leather until the spurting crimson slowed to a sluggish trickle.
Liam let out a blood-curdling scream and went limp, passing out from the agony.
"Is he dead?!" Salvatore gasped, reaching for his weapon instinctively.
"He passed out from the pain," Dela panted, wiping her forehead with her shoulder. "The bleeding is controlled for now, but the tourniquet is a temporary fix. He needs a vascular surgeon to repair the artery, and he needs blood products. He’s down at least two liters."
"The doctor I called is twenty minutes away," Salvatore said, his breath hitching as he checked his brother’s weak radial pulse.
"He won't make it twenty minutes without volume," Dela stated firmly. She stood up, her knees cracking, her hands soaked red to the wrists. "Does anyone here have O-negative blood? Or AB-positive?"
The thirty men in the warehouse looked at one another in confused silence.
"I'm O-negative," Dela said, pulling up her blue janitor sleeve to reveal a pale arm with prominent veins. "I’m a universal donor. Get me an IV kit from my janitor's emergency first-aid box, a wide-bore needle, and vinyl tubing. We’re doing a direct transfusion."
Marco stared at her. "Are you insane? We don't have blood banking equipment here!"
"We don't have a hospital!" Dela snapped back, her eyes flashing with a fierce, commanding fire that made the thick-necked guard step back. "We have a dying man and a living donor. Find the tubing, or watch him stop breathing!"
Salvatore stared at the pale, thin janitor standing over his brother. He saw no fear in her now—only absolute, uncompromising authority.
"Find the kit," Salvatore commanded softly. "Do whatever she says."
Five minutes later, Dela was sitting on a overturned plastic crate beside the table. A makeshift gravity line ran from her left arm directly into Liam’s right arm. She felt the cold, creeping lightheadedness of sudden blood loss settling into her brain, but she kept her eyes fixed on Liam’s monitor—a portable pulse oximeter she had pulled from her own bag.
Slowly, agonizingly, the color began to return to Liam’s gray lips. His chest began to rise and fall in a steadier rhythm.
Salvatore stood beside her, watching the red liquid flow through the clear plastic tube connecting the janitor to his brother. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a clean linen handkerchief, and gently wiped the sweat from Dela’s forehead.
It was an extraordinarily delicate gesture from a man known for ruthless brutality.
"Why are you doing this?" Salvatore asked quietly. "I threatened to kill you."
Dela looked up at him, her dark-blonde hair hanging in damp strands around her pale face. "Because I’m a nurse. It doesn't matter who is on the table. And because..."
Her phone vibrated again in her pocket.
This time, Dela pulled it out with her free hand. She looked at the screen. A text message from Maya had just come through:
Dela, Leo’s inhaler isn't working. He’s retrenching. His lips are turning blue. I called an ambulance, but they say there’s a twenty-minute delay due to the storm on the South Side. Dela, I’m scared.
Dela’s heart plummeted into a dark, bottomless void. She dropped the phone onto her lap, her face turning whiter than the concrete floor.
"Leo..." she whispered, a sob tearing through her throat.
Salvatore leaned down instantly, his gray eyes sharp. "What is it?"
"My son," Dela gasped, her breath catching as panic seized her chest. "He’s four. He has severe asthma... he’s having a fatal attack right now... the ambulance won't make it in time..."
She tried to rip the needle out of her arm to stand up, but Salvatore caught her wrist gently, holding her steady.
"Where does your son live?" Salvatore asked, his voice suddenly dropping into a tone of quiet, absolute command.
"Pilsen... 18th Street..." Dela wept, struggling against his grip. "I have to go! He’s dying!"
Salvatore didn't hesitate. He turned toward the door and roared at the top of his lungs:
"MARCO! Take the armored Suburban! Take three cars as escort! Run every red light between here and Pilsen! Bring her son here NOW! If a cop gets in your way, ram them!"
Marco didn't ask questions. "What’s the boy's name?!"
"Leo!" Dela cried out, her voice breaking. "Leo Marsh! Second floor of the brick building on 18th!"
"Ten minutes, Boss!" Marco yelled, sprinting out the heavy metal doors into the rainy night, accompanied by the deafening roar of six high-performance engines starting outside.
Dela sat back on the crate, her body trembling uncontrollably, tears streaming down her pale, blood-dusted cheeks.
May you like
Salvatore knelt beside her on the floor, ignoring the blood soaking into his tailored trousers. He reached out and took her trembling, cold hand in his massive, warm palm.
"Listen to me, Dela," Salvatore said, his eyes locking onto hers with an intensity that seemed to stop the cold world from spinning. "You are saving my brother’s life right now. I give you my word as a Brennan—nothing will happen to your son. My men will bring him to you, or I will burn this entire city to the ground to find him a doctor."
