Chapter 3 - The Shadow of Salcedo
By 4:00 PM, the fifth floor of Northwestern Memorial Hospital had ceased to function like a normal hospital wing. It had become a fortified military zone.
At every entrance to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, two bulky men in dark suits stood with their hands neatly crossed over their belts, their sharp eyes scanning every doctor, nurse, and janitor who approached. The staff walked nervously, speaking in hushed tones.
Cormack stood behind the large glass window of CICU Room 12.
Inside, Brin lay completely silent under a heavy white blanket. A massive array of machines surrounded her bed—intravenous pumps dripped powerful cardiac medications directly into her veins, an advanced ventilator hissed rhythmically as it pushed air into her fragile lungs, and a multi-parameter monitor displayed the slow, precarious dance of her failing heart.
He hadn't left her side for two hours, refusing even to take off his blood-stained suit jacket.
The silent heavy doors at the end of the hallway opened with a sharp click.
Royce walked quickly toward him, his face pale and strained. Behind him came Viktor, carrying a thick leather folder.
“Boss,” Royce whispered, stopping two feet away and bowing his head respectfully. “We have a problem.”
Cormack didn't look away from the glass. “Speak.”
“Yara Salcedo left the VIP lounge an hour ago,” Royce reported nervously. “She was furious, Cormack. She called her father from her car. Aurelio Salcedo knows you left his daughter stranded at the hospital. He’s calling an emergency meeting of the Five Families tonight at seven o'clock at the Drake Hotel.”
Cormack’s jaw tightened, but his expression remained unreadable. “Let him call it.”
“Boss, you don't understand,” Royce pressed, leaning closer. “Yara didn't just tell him you ignored her. She had one of her driver’s run a check on the girl in the gurney. Aurelio knows Brin is here. He knows she just gave birth.”
For the first time in two hours, Cormack turned his head. His eyes, dark and dead as coal, locked onto his top lieutenant.
“What did you say?” Cormack asked quietly.
Royce swallowed hard, sweating despite the chilled hospital air. “Aurelio knows Brin was your former mistress. His men are already asking questions around West Loop. They’re putting two and two together, Cormack. They know the baby is yours.”
Cormack’s hand dropped to his side, his fingers flexing slowly.
The Salcedo cartel operated under an ancient, brutal code of honor from the mountains of Sinaloa. Aurelio Salcedo was a proud, paranoid man who viewed Cormack’s proposed alliance with his family as a merger of power—a merger sealed by the prospective marriage of Cormack and Yara. To Aurelio, the existence of a secret lover and a bastard child was not just an insult to his daughter; it was a strategic threat to his family’s dominance in Chicago.
“Where is Yara now?” Cormack asked.
“At her father's estate in Lake Forest,” Viktor interjected, stepping forward and opening the leather folder. “And there’s more, boss. Our informants at the docks say Aurelio just pulled twenty of his top enforcers off the night shift at the Hammond rail yard. They’re moving into the city.”
Cormack looked back through the glass at Brin’s pale, serene face, then glanced down the hall toward the secured door of the NICU where little Clara lay in an incubator.
His family—the fragile, beautiful miracle he had discovered only hours ago—was sitting squarely in the crosshairs of a cartel war.
“Royce,” Cormack commanded, his voice dropping into a register of total, cold tactical command.
“Yes, boss?”
“I want forty of our best men brought into this hospital by six o'clock. Place two men inside the room with Clara. Four outside her door. Put six men on this floor, two on the roof, and four at the ground-floor entrances. I want every doctor and nurse who touches Brin or Clara cleared by our security team first.”
“Understood,” Royce said, taking out his phone to make the calls.
“Viktor,” Cormack continued, looking at his second-in-command. “Contact Dr. Vance. Tell him I want a private transport team and a mobile ECMO unit on standby 24/7. If we have to move Brin and Clara out of this city on ten minutes' notice, I want a helicopter ready on the helipad.”
“Consider it done, boss,” Viktor said, turning on his heel and marching down the corridor.
Cormack stood alone in the hallway once more. He pulled his titanium phone from his pocket, flipped it open, and dialed a number he had prayed he would never have to call again.
The line rang three times before a gravelly, old voice answered.
“I wondered how long it would take for you to call, Cormack,” the voice rasped.
“Uncle Dominic,” Cormack said softly, addressing the retired consigliere who had raised him after his father’s murder twenty years ago. “I need a favor. A big one.”
The old man sighed on the other end of the line. “I heard about the hospital, boy. Word travels fast in the underbelly. The Salcedo girl is screaming blood, and Aurelio is sharpening his knives. Is it true? The bartender?”
“She gave me a daughter today, Dominic,” Cormack said, his voice breaking slightly with an honesty he reserved only for the man who had taught him how to survive. “And she’s dying in an ICU bed.”
A long pause hung over the line.
“A daughter,” Dominic repeated softly, his tone shifting from cold political strategist to a father figure filled with deep concern. “God help you, Cormack. You know what Aurelio will do. He won't let a bastard child inherit half of Chicago’s territory. He will try to wipe them out to preserve his daughter’s honor.”
“He can try,” Cormack said, his eyes flashing with a terrifying, predatory fire. “I’m calling to tell you that I’m not going to the meeting at the Drake Hotel tonight.”
“Cormack, if you skip that meeting, it’s a declaration of war!” Dominic warned sternly.
“Then let it be war,” Cormack declared, looking at Brin through the glass. “Tell Aurelio that if he wants to talk to me, he can come to Northwestern Memorial. But tell him to come heavy, because if he steps onto the fifth floor with bad intentions, none of his men are walking out alive.”
He hung up the phone before Dominic could reply.
Cormack pushed open the heavy door to CICU Room 12 and stepped inside. The air was cold, filled with the hum of electronics and the smell of antiseptic.
He walked slowly to the side of Brin’s bed, pulled up a small plastic chair, and sat down.
Slowly, gently, as if she were made of delicate glass that might shatter under his touch, Cormack reached out and took her hand. Her fingers were ice-cold, limp, and scarred with small burn marks from her years of working in kitchens and bars.
He brought her pale hand to his lips, pressing a tender kiss against her knuckles.
“I’m sorry, Brin,” Cormack whispered into the quiet room, tears burning the back of his throat. “I thought I was protecting you by leaving. I thought I was keeping the monsters away from your door. I didn't realize that the biggest monster in your life was my cowardice.”
Brin didn't move. The ventilator clicked, pushing another breath into her chest.
“Our daughter is beautiful,” Cormack whispered, brushing a damp lock of black hair from her forehead. “She has your eyes. She’s small, but she’s a fighter. Just like you.”
He leaned in closer, his forehead resting gently against hers, his voice filled with a desperate, fierce pledge.
May you like
“You have to fight, Brin. You have to wake up. I will hold off Aurelio. I will burn this city to ash if I have to. But I can't raise our daughter alone. I need you. Please... come back to me.”
On the cardiac monitor above the bed, the slow, fragile line flickered, spiking slightly as if in response to his voice, before settling back into its dangerously slow, rhythmic march.
