Chapter 8 - The Emergency in the Blizzard
Lorenzo caught Nora before her knees hit the marble floor. His strong arms scooped her up effortlessly, cradling her against his chest.
"Vito! Call Dr. Rossi immediately!" Lorenzo barked, carrying Nora swiftly out of the dining room toward the grand sitting room where plush sofas and warm fireplaces were roaring. "Tell him the maid is going into early labor!"
"Boss, the blizzard!" Vito shouted, rushing behind him with a phone pressed to his ear. "The roads on the mountain are blocked by three feet of snow! Downed power lines took out the pass! An ambulance won't be able to get up here for at least six hours!"
Lorenzo placed Nora gently on the large velvet sofa before the roaring stone hearth. Nora was clutching her stomach, writhing in pain, her teeth clenched tight as sweat coated her forehead.
"It's too early..." Nora sobbed, panic setting in. "I'm only seven months... Lily... please, not Lily..."
Footsteps approached. The sound of wheelchair wheels squeaked against the floorboards. Giovanni pushed himself into the room, his left hand gripping the rim of the wheel, his right hand resting steadily on his lap. The sheer willpower that drove the old Don was astonishing to everyone who had written him off as dead.
"Lorenzo," Giovanni rasped, stopping his chair beside the couch. He took Nora’s cold hand in his own. "Rossi won't make it. But Maria can."
Lorenzo turned. "Maria? The groundskeeper's wife?"
"She was a midwife in Sicily for thirty years before we brought her to America," Giovanni said, his voice steady and commanding. "She delivered you, Lorenzo. She delivered half the boys in Brooklyn. Bring her up. Now."
"Vito! Go get Maria from the guest cottage!" Lorenzo commanded. "Take the snowcat vehicle! Go!"
Vito sprinted out of the estate.
Lorenzo dropped to one knee beside the sofa, his sharp gray eyes softened with an emotion his men had never seen in him: genuine concern. He took a clean linen cloth, dipped it in a bowl of warm water brought by a terrified maid, and gently wiped the sweat from Nora’s brow.
"Stay with me, Nora," Lorenzo murmured, his rough voice unexpectedly soothing. "You're safe. My father is safe. Nobody in this house will ever hurt you again. Do you hear me?"
Nora looked up at him through tear-filled eyes. The ruthless mafia boss—the man who controlled a criminal empire with blood and fire—was holding her hand with the tenderness of a brother.
"My baby..." she wept, another contraction seizing her body. "I don't have anywhere to go... Brody took all my money... I'm all she has..."
Lorenzo leaned closer, his jaw tightening with unshakeable resolve. "Brody is a dead man walking for leaving you like this. And as for you and your daughter—you will never scrub another floor as long as you live. You gave my father his dignity back. From this moment on, you are a Moretti. Understand? Nobody touches family."
The heavy oak doors of the sitting room burst open. Vito returned, shaking snow from his heavy coat, ushering in an elderly, stout Italian woman with gray hair wrapped in a thick wool scarf, carrying a leather medical satchel.
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"Out! All of you, out!" Maria barked in thick Sicilian accents, rolling up her sleeves immediately. "Except you, Don Giovanni—you stay in the corner. Lorenzo, bring me boiling water, clean towels, and get these useless men out of my way! This child is coming tonight!"
Lorenzo stood up immediately, following the old midwife’s orders without a single second of hesitation. Outside, the blizzard howled against the reinforced glass windows, shaking the heavy frames, but inside the grand sitting room of the Moretti estate, life was about to begin.
