Chapter 2
Caterina was gasping. Her chest rose in erratic, shallow spasms. Blood was pooling heavily around her abdomen, although Helena could see no gunshot wound.
“Fix her,” Nicholas commanded.
“I need to examine her first. What happened?”
Helena reached for a stethoscope.
“She collapsed at dinner,” Nicholas said, his voice tightening. “She started coughing blood, and then her chest—she said it felt like something was tearing inside her. We didn’t wait for an ambulance. We brought her here.”
Helena placed the stethoscope against Caterina’s chest. The sound was unmistakable: a harsh, blowing murmur, the classic sign of an aortic dissection. The main artery carrying blood out of Caterina’s heart was splitting open. It was a catastrophic cardiovascular emergency. Every minute that passed increased the mortality rate by nearly 2%.
“She has an ascending aortic dissection,” Helena said, shifting completely into professional focus. “Her aorta is tearing. She needed to be on a bypass machine in an operating room 3 minutes ago. Without surgery, she will bleed to death internally.”
“Then do it,” Nicholas growled.
“I cannot do it with an armed militia in my emergency room,” Helena snapped. “I need an anesthesiologist, 2 surgical nurses, and a perfusionist. You need to stay out of the room.”
Nicholas’s right-hand man stepped forward. He was a tall, gaunt man named Vincent, and his hand rested on the grip of his pistol.
“Nobody leaves our sight, Doc. You do it with us in the room.”
“This is a sterile environment. You will infect her open chest.”
Before Helena could react, Nicholas drew a customized Beretta 9 mm and pressed the cold barrel directly against her temple. The metal bit into her skin. Everyone in the room stopped moving. The nurses backed away.
“Listen to me very carefully, Dr. Hastings,” Nicholas whispered.
May you like
He leaned close enough for Helena to smell the coppery trace of his mother’s blood on his clothes beneath the scent of expensive cologne.
“That woman on the table is the only piece of my soul I have left. You are going to take her into that operating room. You are going to cut her open, and you are going to sew her heart back together. If her monitor flatlines, if she dies on your table, I am going to put a bullet in your brain. Then I am going to burn this hospital to the ground. Do we have an understanding?”
