The Don's Doctor

More To This Than Meets The Eye

Vincent's POV

Abandoning my car on the curb, I easily find Renzo near the entrance of the hospital. His loitering is bringing unnecessary attention to him, but he stands taller when he sees me. If he is surprised by my presence he doesn’t say anything.

“He’s been waiting in triage for forty minutes. I don’t think he knows about the surgeon, he probably didn’t want the vet to stitch up his face, so I think he is just waiting for a doctor.” Renzo explains.

“Why on this side of the town?” I ask, but he can only shrug.

I just hope it’s any other surgeon in the hospital except for Chiara that calls him.

“He has only brought his second with him, so he can’t be expecting things to become violent, and he knows we don’t use hospitals. If he was going to start anything with just his second he would be a bigger i***t than we realised.” Renzo adds.

“I only have my second with me, and if he touches her you best believe that they are in the best place to have a chance of surviving by the time I’m finished with them.”

Peering back through the automatic doors, we see the octopus disappear down the hallway, followed by Chiara. I nearly choke on my heart as it leaps into my throat. I look around the hospital for a way that will get me inside quickly. Every single door has a magnetic lock and it they won’t let me through to the ER without an injury. I’m tempted to tell Renzo to beat me up, but I know that won’t necessarily get me through. Franco Four Fingers, Barone’s second, is scrolling through his phone, and we have to get him away from the scene before anything else. Rumour has it that he cut off his own finger to get out of police cuffs, but I know it was taken in a bar fight when he was defending the Barone family from some small time associates. It had been an embarrassment at the time, being unable to successfully defend your family against such low ranking members of the hierarchy. Barone’s father purposefully prevented him from having his digits reattached.

“You deal with Franco, and I’ll find a way inside.” I order Renzo, and the glee on his face, tells me that this is an order he is happy to follow.

I watch him kick Franco’s chair and give a mock apology, before nodding towards the toilets. All violence should be done out of sight if we want to keep the officials on side. Of course, Franco falls for the ploy which means that Barone is unprotected.

Conscious that Chiara is alone in a room with Barone, I’m tempted to walk through the security measures at gun point just to remove her from his presence, but that could trigger him to hold her hostage. Like a moment of clarity amid the intoxication of panic, I remembered that she told me her father was in hospital. Running to the cardiothoracic wards, I call the nurses’ desk, and ask for the room of Federico Ricci. Easily, they put me on the visitors’ list, as soon as he gives them permission. I race to the first floor and then double back on myself to get to the ER. Federico will be expecting a visitor, but there’s nothing to be done about that now, I need to reach his daughter. Despite the rules that have always kept me safe, I take my normal phone and call Renzo.

“Sorry it took me so long. Franco has a head like an ox, I had to smash it through the porcelain before he would go down!”

“It doesn’t matter, go to Federico’s ward, he’s in the cardiology wing. Bring him out of the hospital. We are bringing them both home. I gave them your name, so they will be expecting your visit. Tell them you are taking him outside for some fresh air if the old man won’t check himself out.”

I hang up. Too impatient for confirmation that he understood. My heart burns as if acid has encased it, but my legs continue to pound against the ground desperate for speed that is beyond my capabilities. Finally, I’m in the heart of the ER, determined to slow my breath down as if I am just wandering back from the bathroom. That’s when I see the ER chart, behind the nurses’ station: Niccolo Barone, room six. My thoughts are consumed with Chiara’s welfare, but in the pit of my stomach I know something is wrong.

Surreptitiously, I open the door, mindful not to alert Barone to my presence. I can smell the stale smoke and alcohol on him that is barely masked by the sharper smell of hospital hygiene. There is a curtain, around the bed cutting them off, but the shadows are echoes of the vehemence behind the screen.

“…say hello to your mother.” Don Barone, snarls.

I rip the curtain off its pole, and take the safety catch off the gun that is in my belt.

“Get your f*****g hands off her!” I say with little emotion, because if he has killed her my capacity for feeling anything at all will have left me.

He stands, and turns to look at me. Darting my eyes to the ground I see that she’s not moving at all.

“f**k. She’s gone.” I don’t know if I think it or say it, because the red mist is in my vision, but it feels as if it is effusing from my nose and mouth as well.

Rage fills me slowly, so I can savour what I am about to do. Ferocity is working with me for once, and I am determined to kill him. The imprint from the lanyard that he had twisted around his hand, tells me what he has done to her. Not a merciful death. I will deny him of that too. I never should have made her leave the house this morning. I made her his target. I’m torn between wanting to kill him and wanting to hold her. Pushing the gun into his forehead, I put indents on his plump, sweaty skin. I squeeze the trigger slowly, enjoying the way his eyes widen, enjoying the mercy he is begging for but I can’t hear. I’ll kill him, then I’ll hold her.

A straggled breath expands her chest, and the relief is incomparable. Barone laughs at the change in my expression.

“Next time, I won’t enjoy it as much. Next time, I’ll kill her quickly. Next time, she will be there within your reach one second, and dead in your arms the next.”

Tempted to end this right now, I school my expression and feel the crisscross detail on the trigger imprint on my finger. I shouldn’t kill him here, it’s too public, but he didn’t care when he tried to kill Chiara. Hatred doesn’t follow reason.

“I will take everything from you. You’ll be the cautionary tale that the other families tell their heirs about. When I am through with you, your family name will be synonymous with bad luck, women will spit on the floor when they hear it to keep the evil spirits away. The fact that you failed to kill this woman, is the only reason no-one will have to pluck this bullet from your brain in an autopsy today.” I give him a little nod, as if a deal has been made between death and evil.

I smash the butt of the gun into his head. Blood blooms from his wound, blinding his eye. He is still standing. I hit him again. This time he falls to the floor, and the crimson flood stains his already war weathered shirt. It will do…for now.

“Chiara?” I call her name softly, because if she wakes in fear of me, I’ll never be able to mend the broken glass that she sees me through already.

She must have been so afraid, but I can’t work out how Barone knew she was our doctor so quickly, and why he would target her.

Her gentle moan reassures me that she can hear me. Hopefully, her father can help her in the car. Conscious that this place could be crawling with Barone’s men at any moment, I scoop her up in my arms. She’s weightless, but like protecting the rarest of jewels the heaviness of responsibility still feels like a profound duty. Placing her on the bed for a moment, I try to formulate a plan to get us out of here. She’s so beautiful. Gently, I take the lanyard from her neck and place it round my own, the back of it has speckles of blood on it, and the sight makes me want to heave, because it is hers. Corridors are calm, but busy with too many eyes. This would be a bigger cover up than the cops on our payroll could manage. Deciding the corridor is the best route out, I lift her in my arms again and notice that she coasting between consciousness and cataleptic awareness. Taking a deep breath I open the door, and turn my back to the more hectic part of the corridor. In a moment of clarity she reaches forward and pushes a button on the wall. A high pitched siren screams through the building, and I realise she has set of the intruder alarm. People lock themselves inside their rooms, and this is the best chance we have to escape unnoticed. All the cops will need to do, is damage this part of the CCTV. Dashing to the fire exit, we are finally outside of the hospital.

Renzo is waiting for me, every instruction has been followed to the letter, but I can see that his hand is covered in dirt. Laying her cautiously on the back seat, and ignoring her father’s wailing, I adjust her until she is cocooned in my arms. Once placated that she is as safe as she can be, I give Renzo the nod to drive.

“What happened?” Her father asks.

Everything in me wants me to answer ‘you’, but I refrain. Undeniably, I’m angry that he let this pearl wade through the sewage of my world. She’ll forever be tarnaged by being associated with me. I look at her injuries and the evidence of her experience is starting to form. The bruising around her neck is purple, the shade that royalty would wear, but there’s nothing queenly in the way she has been treated, there’s nothing graceful in the way her father offered her like prey to the monsters.

“They won’t follow us, I’ve slashed their tyres.” Renzo tells me, but it doesn’t matter, because right now I’m craving complete bloodshed.

When I look at what he has done to her, it makes me want to taste the blood of my enemies of my tongue, cover my hands in their entrails. The only thing I want more than violence, is to know that she is well cared for and safe, and only I can provide that.

Stopping at the door of our house, I lift her smoothly out of the car. I don’t consider the guest bedrooms once, I take her straight to my bedroom. Placing her on my bed, I caress her forehead, moving the hair that has fallen forwards. It soothes my soul to see her in the place where I can protect her best. Marvelling at her, I can physically feel my affection for her solidifying within me. It is an emotion that has snuck up on me like a stranger. As weak as she is, in the moments that she was alert, she managed to find us a way out without having to hurt anyone. Despite all odds, she managed to survive an attack that would have killed me if it had been successful. In this room she is safe, and it calms me a little.

Shuffling inside with his eyes still wet, Federico examines his daughter, even though his own discomfort is evident. He talks through all the steps he is completing, and I’m not sure if it is for my benefit or his own, so I do not stop him. They say that people shouldn’t work on their loved ones or family members, and I can see why. My need to save her goes beyond reason, but her father’s need to help her is logical. In this moment, I realise that I want to protect her more than her father does. I never would have brought her into this world. He concludes his assessment of her, prescribing rest and monitoring. I assure him that I will watch over her, and dismiss him.

“We need to have a conversation, there’s more to this than meets the eye, and I think you know more than you are saying!” I accuse him, as he opens the door to leave.

Federico nods, and walks on to the landing, searching for a place to rest.