Chapter 6 - The South Boston Reckoning
The surgery on Tuesday morning took four hours.
Maeve sat in the private waiting lounge on the fourth floor of the medical center, her hands tucked into the pockets of a gray wool coat Rafe had bought for her, her eyes fixed on the red light above the operating room door. She hadn't eaten since the Fairmont dinner; her stomach felt like a knot of old wire, her shoulder aching from the stress of the long drive across town.
The light turned green.
Dr. Aris stepped through the double doors, his mask hanging from his neck, his face covered in a light sheen of sweat but his eyes bright with success. "He’s through, Miss Donovan. The pulmonary valve is clearing fluid perfectly. The tissue responded to the reconstruction better than we anticipated. He’s in recovery now."
Maeve let out a long, trembling breath, her knees giving out as she sank back onto the leather sofa. She covered her face with her hands, the tears she had held back since the attack finally breaking through her fingers.
A heavy hand dropped onto her shoulder—not the light touch of a doctor, but the massive, warm pressure of Rafe Colazo’s palm. He had been standing in the doorway for three hours, his phone buzzing every five minutes with updates from the docks, but he hadn't left the floor.
"He’s safe, Maeve," Rafe said, his voice softer than she had ever heard it. "The boy is clean. The guard is outside his door, and the hospital has been paid for the next three years of recovery care."
Maeve looked up at him through her wet eyelashes, her gray eyes matching his for pure, unadulterated intensity. "Why are you doing this for us, Rafe? You don't know me. I’m just a girl from the South End who happened to be in the way when your sister’s life was on the line."
Rafe knelt before her, his large hands catching her wrists, pulling her fingers away from her face until she had to look into the winter-sea gray of his eyes.
"You weren't in the way, Maeve," he whispered, his thumb tracing the line of her jawline with a deliberate, slow pressure that made her heart hammer against her ribs. "You were the only person in a room filled with fifty men who had the stones to move when the steel came down. You’re not a waitress anymore. You're the woman who kept my family whole. And in the North End... that means you're the only thing I have left worth fighting for."
May you like
Before she could answer, the elevator at the end of the hall opened with a sharp, mechanical chime.
Leo hurried down the passage, his face pale, a digital tablet held in his hand. "Boss... the Lucchese people just cleared the lower barrier on the expressway. They have four trucks heading toward the Hanover house. Dominic didn't go back to New York. He brought the whole faction from the western docks."
