17. Leander
Leander
My phone vibrates against my thigh with a dull, persistent buzz.
Unknown caller ID.
I quietly pull my hand from Kara's, stand up from the chair beside her bed, and step out into the hallway before pulling the phone from my pocket.
I slide the bar to accept. "Speak."
"Don Roberto has called an emergency council meeting at the estate," Santoro's voice comes through, tight with suppressed tension. "Eight-thirty in the main hall. Every capo from the north, west, and riverfront districts has been summoned."
"I'm at work, Santoro," I reply.
"You need to be here, Leander," Santoro says, lowering his tone half an octave.
"The basement lounge looks like a butcher shop.
"Vincenzo is here. His crew brought him up from the clinic an hour ago.
The family is in an uproar. If you don't show up to answer for it, Roberto will make a ruling in your absence. "
A beat of silence hangs between us.
"Tell my father I'll be there in twenty," I reply, and end the call.
I slip the phone into my pocket and turn back toward Bay One, only to find Julian walking down the corridor holding a paper cup of black coffee and a thick stack of overnight chart folders. His eyes have dark circles beneath them, and his scrub top is rumpled at the collar.
"Shift over?" I ask as he stops outside Kara's door.
"Just clocked out fifteen minutes ago," Julian answers, taking a slow sip from the cup. "Thought I’d pop in to check on our favorite patient before I drove home to sleep for fourteen hours. How's she doing?"
"Stable," I nod toward the glass partition. "Julian... I need a favor."
Julian lowers his coffee, his easygoing expression instantly tightening into something watchful. "What happened?"
"Santoro just called. The estate council is meeting in half an hour. I have to be there."
Julian frowns, glancing between me and the hospital room. "Leander, you look like you haven't slept in thirty-six hours, and your knuckles look like raw meat under those bandages. You sure you want to walk into a viper pit right now?"
"I don't have a choice," I tell him, keeping my voice low. "I need you to stay with her until I get back. It won't take more than an hour or two. If you have to leave before I return, pull Charge Nurse Miller and keep her inside this room until I walk through that door."
Julian looks at the thick stack of folders in his hand, then gives a single, firm nod.
"I still have about two hours of overnight intake charts and discharge summaries to sign off on anyway.
I'll pull a chair next to her bed and do my paperwork right there.
Nobody gets past that door without my say-so. "
"Thank you," I say quietly.
"Don't thank me. Just come back in one piece," Julian replies.
I stand there for five seconds, watching Kara's chest rise and fall under the hospital blanket, then turn on my heel and head down the stairwell to the garage.
By the time I pull my car up the long cobblestone drive of the Moretti estate, four black Cadillac Escalades are already parked along the front lawn, their engines cooling in the morning air.
The double doors of the main house are open. Two armed guards stand near the foyer, their eyes widening slightly as I walk past them in my scrub. Neither of them dares to put a hand on their sidearm.
I turn the corner into the large study.
The air inside is thick with cigar smoke. Ten men sit around the massive table, the family's top capos, men who control the docks, the distribution routes, and the city’s concrete yards.
At the far end of the table, Don Roberto sits in his high-backed leather chair, his hands clasped over his stomach, his eyes sharp and observant.
To his right, Vincenzo sits in an armored wheelchair.
His jaw is wired shut with stainless steel brackets, his swollen face mottled with dark purple and sickly yellow bruises.
His left wrist is encased in a thick plaster cast resting on a foam armrest, and his eyes glare at me with pure, unadulterated hatred.
The moment I step through the threshold, the room explodes into noise.
"There he is!" Capo Morelli roars, slamming both fists onto the surface so hard the crystal glasses rattle. "The fucking doctor thinks he can walk in here like he owns the city!"
"You wiped out twelve men in the basement holding cells, Leander!" Bernardo, the dock boss, snarls, half-rising from his chair with a flushed, furious face. "Twelve men! Four of them were my best collectors! Who the fuck gave you the authority to butcher our people?"
"He didn't use bullets, Bernardo," another capo mutters from across the table, his face pale as he looks at my bandaged knuckles. "The coroner said he crushed their windpipes and broke their bones with his bare hands."
"I don't give a fuck what he used!" Morelli shouts, pointing a thick finger at me. "He broke Vincenzo's jaw and shattered his wrist! Vincenzo is the chosen successor! You don't lay hands on the heir without paying with your own throat!"
Blah blah blah. I’m done with this.
"You done?" I ask quietly.
The calm in my voice cuts right through the shouting. Morelli's jaw tightens, and Bernardo slowly sinks back into his chair, his hand resting near his jacket lapel.
"You have thirty seconds to explain yourself, boy," Bernardo spits, his eyes narrowed into slits. "Before the commission votes on a sanction."
Sanction? Such a joke.
"There is nothing to vote on," I step forward until I am standing two feet from the edge of the table, looking directly at the capos. "Vincenzo sent Gino and two enforcers to Kara last night. They put a boot to her ribs and broke glass into her skin."
A tense murmur ripples down the table. Two capos glance at each other, clearly uncomfortable with the target.
"Kara Rossi is Antonio Rossi's daughter," I continue, my voice dropping an octave, cold and level. "She is a civilian. She is also under my protection. When I arrived at the estate basement, the twelve men who execute his dirty work were waiting in the holding room."
I look down at Vincenzo, who is trembling in his wheelchair, his breathing whistling wetly through his wired teeth.
"I gave those twelve men the exact same mercy they showed an unarmed woman," I say, my eyes moving across the room, meeting every single capo's gaze one by one.
"And as for Vincenzo... the only reason he is breathing through those wires today instead of lying in a zinc tray at the city morgue is because he shares Roberto’s last name. "
"You arrogant little bastard!" Vincenzo tries to shout, but the words come out as a muffled, guttural hiss through the metal brackets in his teeth. He bangs his good hand against the armrest of his wheelchair, spit flying from his lips.
"Sit down, Vincenzo," a deep, resonant voice cuts across the chaos.
Don Roberto speaks for the first time.
The entire room falls dead silent. The capos immediately pull back, their furious expressions instantly morphing into rigid deference.
Roberto leans forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the polished wood. A slow, terrifying smile spreads across his aged face. There is no anger in his eyes, only a manic exhilaration that makes the air in the room feel heavy.
"Twelve trained enforcers," Roberto’s voice is full of dark satisfaction. "In under four minutes. With bare hands. And you broke my chosen heir like a dry twig."
"Roberto—" Bernardo begins, alarmed.
"Silence!" Roberto snaps, not taking his eyes off me. He stands up slowly, adjusting the cuffs of his dark suit. "For years, you ran away and thought you could wash the Moretti name out of your blood.."
Roberto walks around the table, stopping three paces from where I stand.
"Look at him," Roberto announces, gesturing toward me with an open hand to the stunned table of capos.
"Look at the way he stands in a room full of loaded guns without blinking.
Look at what he did to a dozen killers with his bare hands.
That is what a real Don looks like. That is the ruthless blood that built this family. I always knew it was in you."
The capos exchange bewildered, furious looks.
"Roberto, this is madness!" Morelli protests, his voice cracking with outrage. "Rule the organization?! This bastard child?! He’s spent years treating junkies in the ER! He abandoned the family! He broke Vincenzo's bones!"
"My legitimate son couldn't handle an attorney without sending three men, and then let one surgeon wipe out his entire crew," Roberto snarls back, turning a cold, disgusted glare on Vincenzo. "Leander is the only man in this room with the stomach to do what needs to be done."
Roberto turns back to me, his eyes gleaming with pride. "Take your place at this table, Leander. Take the seat next to me. Break the girl's ties with Antonio, bring her into this house, and the empire is yours."
The capos stare at me in stunned, terrified silence, waiting for my answer.
I look Roberto dead in the eye.
"Keep your chair," I mutter, my voice completely devoid of emotion. "Keep your docks, your money, and your title. I don't want a single cent of your blood money, and I sure as hell don't want your seat."
Roberto's smile falters slightly, his brows knitting together. "Leander—"
"I didn't come here to claim a throne," I cut him off, turning my gaze to every capo seated around the mahogany table. "I came here to make one thing crystal clear to every single person in this room."
I pause, letting the silence press down on them.
"Kara Rossi is mine. She is not a bargaining chip for your alliances, and she is not an open target for your grudges.
If anyone in this room or anyone working under your payroll so much as breathes in her direction again, I won't just kill the men you send.
I will come to your homes, I will bypass your guards, and I will tear your throats out myself. "
Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. Even Morelli keeps his mouth shut, staring at the certainty in my eyes.
"We are done here," I announce.
I turn on my heel, button my coat with a single movement, and walk toward the doors.
"Leander," Roberto calls out behind me, his tone light, amused, and completely unbothered by my refusal. "This isn't over. You can't step into the river and pretend you aren't wet."
I don't stop or look back. I push through the doors and walk out into the long hallway.
Before I reach the front foyer, the metallic sound of wheelchair wheels rolling fast across marble echoes behind me.
I stop, turning my head slightly over my shoulder.
Vincenzo's two lieutenants are pushing his wheelchair down the corridor, stopping ten feet away.
Vincenzo's eyes are bloodshot, wide, and bulging with an unhinged, murderous fury.
He reaches up with his left hand, grabbing the metal frame of his jaw splint, leaning his upper body forward against his chest brace.
He tries to speak. The sound coming out of his mouth is wet, broken, and raspy—his teeth locked tight behind surgical wire, his voice forced through his broken nose.
"This... is... all-out... war... Leander," Vincenzo chokes out, every syllable a strained, painful wheeze that spray flecks of bloody spit onto his lapels.
I stand ten feet away, my posture completely still, my hands in my pockets, watching my brother struggle to form words.
"I will... never... forget... this disrespect," Vincenzo pants out, his left hand clenching into a white-knuckled fist against his thigh, his gaze burning into mine with absolute obsession.
"You're a... bastard... a doctor... playing...
mafia... I'll make sure... you answer... for every... broken bone..."
I look at his cast, look at his splint, and then bring my dark eyes up to meet his.
"You should let your jaw heal, Vincenzo," I tell him cleanly, my voice devoid of any anger or heat. "It's hard to fight a war when you can't swallow solid food."
I turn around and walk out the front doors into the morning air.
I get into my car, start the engine, and pull out onto the driveway, leaving the estate and its broken heir behind me.
I pull my phone from my pocket and text Julian a single word:
Returning.
I put the car in gear and hit the gas, speeding down the road toward the city, heading straight back to Metro General where Kara is waiting.