Chapter 2 - The Man in the White CoatElena spent the next forty-seven minutes wondering whether she had imagined Dante's warning.
Thirty-eight years old.
Two gunshot wounds.
Massive blood loss.
No measurable pulse.
No spontaneous breathing.
The most feared man in Phoenix had survived ambushes, federal investigations, rival families, and three separate attempts on his life.
But according to the trauma team gathered around Bed Three, a bullet had finally accomplished what half the city had failed to do.
Dr. Harold Mercer pulled off his blood-covered gloves.
“Time of death, 2:17 a.m.”
The cardiac monitor screamed one long, merciless tone.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody except twenty-four-year-old rookie nurse Elena Torres.
“Wait.”
The word slipped out before she could stop it.
Every face turned toward her.
Dr. Mercer frowned.
Elena had been working emergency trauma for exactly eleven weeks. She was still the nurse who double-checked medication calculations three times. The nurse who arrived twenty minutes early because being late terrified her more than being exhausted.
She was also the least powerful person in the room.
Especially tonight.
Beyond the glass doors stood four men in dark suits.
Big men.
Silent men.
Men who did not look like grieving relatives.
The tallest one had arrived carrying Dante Moretti through the emergency entrance himself, roaring for someone to save his boss while blood soaked through an expensive black shirt.
Hospital security had wisely decided not to argue with him.
Now those men watched through the glass.
Waiting.
Elena swallowed.
“I said wait.”
Dr. Mercer stared at her.
“Torres, we did everything.”
“I know.”
“Thirty-four minutes of resuscitation.”
“I know.”
“No organized rhythm.”
“I know.”
“Then what exactly are we waiting for?”
Elena didn't have an answer.
Only a feeling.
Something bothered her.
She looked at Dante.
His chest was streaked with blood, antiseptic, electrode gel, and bruises from CPR. Tattoos covered his shoulders and torso—religious symbols, dates, names, black roses, things she didn't understand.
His face looked strangely calm.
Too calm.
Elena stepped closer.
“Torres.”
She ignored Dr. Mercer.
Her gloved fingers pressed against Dante's neck.
Nothing.
Then—
There.
Elena froze.
A tiny flutter touched her fingertips.
So faint she almost believed she had imagined it.
She adjusted her hand.
One second.
Two.
Three.
There it was again.
A pulse.
Weak.
Irregular.
But real.
“Oh my God.”
Dr. Mercer turned.
“What?”
“I have something.”
“You have artifact.”
“No.”
“Elena—”
“I have a pulse.”
Silence hit the room harder than the gunshots that had brought Dante there.
Dr. Mercer moved immediately.
He placed his fingers against Dante's carotid artery.
His expression changed.
“Monitor.”
The team exploded back into motion.
Someone reconnected a lead that had been loosened.
Someone squeezed an IV bag.
Dr. Mercer leaned over Dante.
“Get me an ultrasound. Now.”
The flat line trembled.
A tiny spike appeared.
Then another.
Then another.
Beep.
Elena stared.
Beep.
The sound was faint.
But it was there.
Dante Moretti was alive.
The doors behind them opened.
The tallest bodyguard stepped inside.
“What happened?”
Dr. Mercer didn't look away from the patient.
“He has cardiac activity.”
The man's face hardened.
“You said he was dead.”
“He almost was.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
Elena suddenly understood exactly who these men were.
And exactly what kind of man lay beneath her hands.
The name Moretti wasn't unfamiliar in Phoenix.
Everyone had heard it.
Nightclubs.
Construction companies.
Restaurants.
Rumors of gambling rooms.
Disappearances.
Trials where witnesses suddenly remembered nothing.
Elena's stomach tightened.
The bodyguard came closer.
“If he dies because somebody stopped too soon—”
“Back up,” Elena snapped.
The room went silent again.
Even she couldn't believe she'd said it.
The bodyguard slowly turned toward her.
Elena's legs wanted to run.
Instead, she pointed toward the doors.
“You want him alive? Let us work.”
For three seconds, nobody moved.
Then the man's mouth twitched.
Not quite a smile.
He stepped backward.
Dr. Mercer looked at Elena as if he had just discovered she was either extremely brave or catastrophically stupid.
“Pressure dropping,” a resident announced.
“Prepare for OR,” Mercer said. “We may have internal bleeding.”
Elena glanced at the puncture wound near Dante's ribs.
Something didn't make sense.
She had cleaned enough trauma injuries to recognize bullet paths.
One wound looked wrong.
Too clean.
Too controlled.
Then she noticed something else.
A tiny red mark beneath Dante's left collarbone.
Not a gunshot wound.
A needle puncture.
Fresh.
“Elena?”
She looked up.
“What?”
“You coming?”
She started to answer.
Then Dante's hand moved.
Barely.
His bloody fingers curled around her wrist.
Elena gasped.
His eyes remained closed.
But his lips parted.
A whisper escaped.
Two words.
So faint that only she heard them.
“Not Mercer.”
Elena stopped breathing.
Dr. Mercer stood less than three feet away.
“Torres?”
Dante's grip loosened.
His hand fell back against the bed.
Elena stared from him to the doctor.
Mercer was already turning toward the operating room doors.
“Move. We're losing him.”
Elena followed because she had no choice.
But as the bed rolled down the hallway, one terrifying certainty settled into her chest.
Dante Moretti had not simply been shot.
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Someone had tried to make sure he died inside Saint Gabriel.
And the unconscious man everyone feared had just warned her that the person trying to kill him might be wearing a white coat.
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