Chapter 2
“Half a bagel,” Nina confessed, checking the digital chart clipped to her lanyard. “A resident took the other half because a multi-car pileup hit the inbound Kennedy expressway at seven sharp. You holding auditions for my nutritionist, Moretti?”
Around them, the hallway shrank.
The dozen men flanking the perimeter of room 712 stiffened in unison. Gus, leaning his substantial bulk against a structural column near the ice machine, looked like he was about to swallow his tongue. The elderly attorney holding the ostrich-skin briefcase blinked behind tortoise-shell frames, clearly unaccustomed to hearing the sovereign ruler of the North Side underworld spoken to like a delinquent nephew behind on his chores.
Luca didn’t flinch.
Instead, the cold, razor-thin line of his mouth eased by a fraction of a millimeter. He reached inside his tailored overcoat, produced an ivory linen napkin folded neatly into a square, and extended it across the sterile linoleum.
“Almond biscotti,” he said. “From D’Agostino’s on Grand. Eat it before you check the dressings.”
Nina looked at the napkin, then up into his dark hazel eyes. In the harsh fluorescent lights of the seventh floor, the silver threaded through his temples was more prominent, the scar through his eyebrow sharper, the dark circles under his eyes carved deep by four sleepless nights.
“Bribing medical staff is a felony on this floor,” she murmured, but her fingers took the napkin anyway. Her thumb brushed his knuckles. His skin was warm, calloused, perfectly still. No tremor today. “How’s Tommy?”
“He’s awake,” Luca answered, his voice dropping into that low, gravelly timbre that seemed built to bypass microphones. “The doctors said the graft took. They said if the primary ER team hadn’t clamped the subclavian artery within ninety seconds of intake, he would have bled out on the gurney.”
Nina unwrapped a corner of the napkin. The scent of toasted almonds and vanilla cut through the sharp stench of isopropyl alcohol and bleach.
“Dr. Mercer clamped it,” she said evenly, biting into the crisp pastry. “I just held the retractor and yelled at the orderly to bring more O-negative. Team effort. Don't build me a statue.”
“I don’t build statues,” Luca said. “I balance ledgers.”
“Well, keep your ledger away from my medication cart. I have vitals to pull, and you have eleven guys blocking the crash cart route. Disperse the small army, Luca. Fire marshal will have a stroke, and Beth over there is two minutes away from wetting her scrubs.”