Chapter 8 - The Hospital Vigil
St. Catherine’s Hospital.
Seven years later, I found myself sitting in the exact same surgical waiting room on the fourth floor.
The smell was the same—industrial bleach, cold floor wax, and lukewarm coffee from paper cups. But tonight, there was no overflow ward. Tonight, an entire floor of the hospital was locked down by heavily armed guards wearing black suits and silver Moretti pins.
Down the hallway, Dante stood watching the elevators, his arm bound in a sling, his face bruised and pale.
Emily was curled up on a vinyl couch beside me, her head resting on my lap, wrapped in a fleece blanket Madison had fetched from the car. She had refused to leave the hospital. Every time I tried to carry her out to the waiting sedan, those gray eyes had looked up at me with fierce stubbornness.
*“He got hurt protecting us, Mommy,”* she had said. *“We don’t leave people when they’re hurt.”*
The words had pierced straight through my chest. Even without knowing the truth, the blood in her veins knew who lay behind those double operating doors.
The elevator doors chimed softly.
My parents stepped out into the hallway.
Richard and Eleanor Bennett looked pristine, though Eleanor’s silk blouse was slightly rumpled from travel. The second they saw me, my mother rushed forward, her designer heels clicking sharply on the linoleum.
“Claire! Oh, thank God you’re alive!” Eleanor reached out as if to embrace me, but I stood up abruptly, stepping away so Emily remained sheltered behind me.
My mother stopped, her arms falling awkwardly. “Claire, darling… we heard what happened at the Drake. We heard about the attack at the estate. Where is Sophia? Is she all right? And Lucas?”
I looked at the woman who had birthed me, and for the first time in my life, I felt absolutely nothing. No anger, no sadness—only the chilling clarity of complete detachment.
“Sophia is currently in the custody of Vincent’s syndicate,” I said, my voice dead and level. “She will spend the rest of her miserable life answering for treason, fraud, and attempted murder. And Lucas has been placed in protective custody until the courts appoint a non-corrupt legal guardian.”
Richard Bennett’s face darkened with indignation. “Claire, how can you speak about your sister that way? Sophia is family! She bore the Moretti heir!”
“Lucas is Sal Castiglione’s son,” Madison’s voice cut in from the doorway, her legal briefcase snapping open with a violent click. She pulled out the certified DNA transcripts and shoved them against my father’s chest. “Read it, Richard. Your precious adopted daughter played both of Chicago’s mafia families against each other, embezzled millions from the foundation, and set up an ambush tonight that nearly killed your granddaughter.”
My father looked down at the paper. His jaw dropped. Eleanor took the sheet from his shaking hands, her eyes scanning the percentages, her face turning an ugly shade of gray.
“This… this can’t be…” Eleanor stammered.
“Seven years ago,” I stepped forward, towering over my mother, “you stood in my delivery room while I was in labor. You told me my child didn't matter because Sophia was having a boy. You abandoned your own flesh and blood for a counterfeit prince.”
“Claire, we didn’t know—”
“You didn’t care,” I cut her off, my voice dropping to a whisper that made both of them shrink back. “You wanted the Moretti power. You wanted the prestige. Well, take a good look at your granddaughter. Her name is Emily. She is Vincent Moretti’s only trueborn heir. And neither of you will ever speak her name, see her face, or touch a single penny of her inheritance for as long as you live.”
“You can’t cut us out!” Richard snapped, his aristocratic pride flaring. “We are her grandparents!”
Dante stepped forward from the corridor wall, the heavy silhouette of his suppressed firearm visible beneath his tailored jacket. He didn't say a word. He merely rested his uninjured hand on his belt and stared at my father with the cold, dead eyes of a hitman.
Richard swallowed hard, his face turning pale.
“Get out of my sight,” I told them. “If you ever approach my daughter again, I won't call the police. I’ll let Vincent handle it.”
My parents turned without another word and hurried back toward the elevators, their illusions of grandeur crushed under the weight of their own greed.
A moment later, the red light above the surgical doors switched to green.
Dr. Chen, the chief of trauma surgery, stepped out into the waiting room, pulling his surgical mask down around his neck. He looked exhausted, his scrub shirt stained with dried blood.
I walked toward him, my hands clutched tightly in front of me. “Doctor?”
“He took eight pellets of heavy buckshot to his left flank,” Dr. Chen said, wiping his brow. “Two broke his ribs, one punctured his spleen, and another missed his descending aorta by less than a millimeter. We had to perform an emergency splenectomy and repair massive internal hemorrhaging.”
My breath caught. “Is he…?”
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“He survived,” Dr. Chen breathed a weary smile. “The man has the constitution of a tank. He’s in recovery now. He’s awake, though heavily sedated. And against all medical protocol, he is demanding to see his wife.”
***
