Chapter 2 - Code Blue
The room exploded into frantic motion. The attending physician lunged forward, hitting the blue emergency switch on the headwall. ""Code blue, bed four! Charge the pediatric paddles to twenty!""
Elena let out a raw, shredded shriek as two trauma nurses rushed through the sliding doors, shoving Dante aside with ruthless efficiency. Dante didn't fight them. He stepped backward, his spine slamming against the cool glass partition, his breath catching in his throat. For fifteen years, he had operated in worlds where men bled out on concrete, where violence was an arithmetic of leverage and survival. But standing here, watching four pairs of hands surround a body no longer than his forearm, his hands began to shake.
The physician pressed two fingers to the baby's tiny sternum, initiating rapid, rhythmic compressions. ""No pulse. Ventricular fibrillation. Clear!""
A tiny jolt lifted the infant slightly off the mattress. The monitor screen remained erratic, jagged lines refusing to settle into a rhythm. Elena dropped to her knees, clawing at the frame of the bed, her face buried against the metal railing. ""Please, Paige. Paige, look at me. Don't do this.""
Dante leaned down, his large, tattooed hand gripping Elena by the shoulder. His touch was firm, grounding, pulling her upright with an authority born of crisis. ""Breathe,"" he ordered softly, though his own pulse was roaring in his ears. ""Look at me, Elena. Breathe.""
""She was fine two hours ago,"" Elena choked out, tears washing mascara down her pale cheeks. ""She just had a fever. They gave her an injection for dehydration and then... she stopped breathing.""
Dante’s eyes narrowed instantly. His instincts, dormant in civilian spaces, snapped into sharp focus. He looked past the doctors toward the plastic tray discarded on the side counter. An empty glass ampoule lay next to a discarded syringe. The label read standard saline, but the crimped rubber stopper had a double needle puncture.
""Clear!"" the doctor called again. Another jolt.
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The monitor beeped once. Twice. Then caught a fragile, rapid rhythm. Seventy beats per minute. Eighty. One hundred. The physician exhaled a ragged breath, stepping back to wipe sweat from her brow. ""Rhythm restored. We need a full toxicology panel right now.""
Dante let go of Elena’s shoulder and slipped silently over to the counter. Shielding the movement with his body, he dropped the empty glass ampoule into his jacket pocket. As he turned back toward the crib, his phone vibrated once in his palm. A message from an unknown burner number appeared on the dark screen: She survived the first dose, Dante. Pay your debt or the next one goes through the IV.
