"Figlia mia— my daughter." A pause. The velvet setting in before the blade. "I've been patient. I've given you time to understand your situation. But patience has a limit, even mine." Another pause, longer. "Bring me the drive. Twenty-four hours. Or I burn Bellevue to the ground."
The message ends.
I sit very still.
My hands aren't shaking. I notice this the way I notice it in the trauma bay — not as reassurance but as data. My hands don't shake. My voice doesn't crack. My father can threaten the one place in this world that is entirely mine — the patients, nurses, residents who have nothing to do with any of this?—
My hands aren't shaking.
But something else is. Deep. Below the surface. The kind of shaking you can't see and can't stop.
I pick up the phone and call Luca.
He answers before the first ring finishes. "What's wrong?”
Not a question. He already knows.
"Check your secure line." Surgeon's voice. Steady, precise, no wasted words. "My father just threatened to burn down my hospital."
Silence. Then, very quietly, with a coldness that makes the room feel smaller:
"He won't."
"You don't know that."
"No," Luca says. "But I know what happens to people who try."
14
LUCA
Ilisten to the voicemail twice.
Giovanni's voice is exactly what I expected — cultured, warm, the tone of a man who's spent decades making threats sound like invitations. The content is no surprise.
The target is.
Bellevue.
He picked the one thing she built on her own. The one place that has nothing to do with any of this — patients, nurses, residents who come in at 6 a.m., go home at midnight, and have never heard the name Virelli in their lives.
I set the phone down.
"Fuck," I say. Very quietly. To no one.
Then I call Caruso.
"Bellevue. Full perimeter. I want four men on the ER entrance, two on the parking structure, and one embedded with hospital security. Tonight." A pause. "And keep it off the main log."
"Understood." He doesn't ask why. He never asks why. It's one of his most valuable qualities.
I hang up and pour two fingers of scotch I don't drink. I stand at the window, watching 92nd Street do nothing as I wait for Serafina to come downstairs.
She doesn't come downstairs.
I go to her.
She's in the kitchen when I find her — standing at the counter with a glass of water she isn't drinking, still dressed, still wired the way she gets when she's running threat assessments behind her eyes, pretending she isn't. My laptop is open on the island.
