Chapter 6 - LILY CAME TOO EARLY
The estate became a hospital.
There was no other choice.
Snowdrifts had reached nearly four feet along the mountain road.
The helicopter pilot refused to take off in near-zero visibility.
A state emergency crew estimated at least three hours before a plow could reach the Moretti property.
Nora did not have three hours.
Dr. Bellucci examined her in one of the guest suites.
“I’m a neurologist, not an obstetrician.”
Lorenzo stood near the bed.
“You went to medical school.”
“That does not make me qualified to deliver a twenty-nine-week baby.”
“Then find someone who is.”
Bellucci pointed toward the storm.
“I cannot manufacture an obstetrician.”
Matteo entered.
“We reached one.”
A woman's voice came through a satellite video connection.
Dr. Rachel Harmon, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist from Albany.
She began issuing instructions.
Contractions.
Ruptured membranes.
Prematurity.
Steroids if available.
Magnesium.
IV access.
Monitoring.
The estate's medical room was unusually well-stocked because Giovanni had required private nursing care for years.
For once, the Morettis' obsession with preparation worked in Nora's favor.
Nora lay trembling beneath warm blankets.
“I can't have her here.”
Lorenzo sat beside her.
“You're not having her alone.”
“That's not what I mean.”
Her eyes filled.
“She’s too small.”
Dr. Harmon spoke through the tablet.
“Nora, listen to me. Twenty-nine weeks is early, but babies born at this gestational age can do very well with proper neonatal care. Right now our goal is to slow things down if we can and get you transferred safely.”
Nora nodded.
A nurse Lorenzo had summoned from Giovanni’s private care team administered medication.
The contractions slowed.
Not stopped.
But slowed.
Lorenzo remained.
For an hour.
Then two.
Nora finally looked at him.
“Your father?”
“Safe.”
“Mrs. Gable?”
“Contained.”
“Ross?”
“Contained.”
“The card?”
“Safe.”
She exhaled.
“You should go.”
“No.”
“You have an empire being attacked.”
“I have people for that.”
She looked at him.
“You barely know me.”
His gray eyes did not move.
“My father knows you.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“To him it is.”
Nora looked away.
Another contraction tightened across her stomach.
Lorenzo watched the monitor as if he could intimidate it into behaving.
“You don't have to stay.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
He was quiet.
Then said, “Because when I arrived this morning, I thought the worst thing I would discover was that my staff had become lazy.”
Nora listened.
“I found out my father has been conscious for five years while I left him in the hands of people who hurt him.”
His jaw tightened.
“I cannot change what I failed to see.”
He looked at her.
“But I can decide what I see now.”
Nora's throat tightened.
At 3:40 a.m., the contractions worsened again.
Dr. Harmon appeared on screen.
“We need to prepare for delivery.”
“No,” Nora whispered.
Lorenzo took her hand.
She squeezed hard.
“I'm scared.”
“I know.”
“What if she can't breathe?”
“Then Bellucci will help her.”
The neurologist looked horrified.
“I sincerely wish you would stop assigning me specialties.”
Despite the fear, Nora laughed.
Dr. Bellucci smiled.
Then another contraction hit.
This one was different.
Nora cried out.
The nurse checked.
Her face changed.
“What?”
Nora demanded.
The nurse looked at Dr. Bellucci.
Then the screen.
“She’s progressing.”
Dr. Harmon became completely focused.
“All right. We are doing this.”
Twenty-nine weeks.
In a Moretti guest room.
During the worst blizzard in years.
With a neurologist who had not delivered a baby since residency.
Nora almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity.
Instead she cried.
Lorenzo stayed beside her.
He removed his watch when she nearly crushed it while gripping his wrist.
At 4:18 a.m., Dr. Bellucci announced he could see the baby.
Nora panicked.
“I can't.”
Lorenzo leaned close.
“Yes, you can.”
“I can't.”
“Nora.”
She opened her eyes.
He was the most feared man in New York criminal circles.
People crossed streets to avoid him.
Men twice her size reportedly trembled when he entered a room.
Now his hair was disheveled.
His shirt was wrinkled.
There was blood from someone else's injury on his cuff.
And he looked terrified for her.
“You scrubbed stone floors while carrying this child.”
His voice was low.
“You walked through a basement while men were attacking this house.”
Another contraction.
“You protected my father when everybody else treated him as less than human.”
Nora sobbed.
“You can do this.”
She pushed.
At 4:31 in the morning, Lily Hale Moretti—
No.
Not Moretti.
Nora's mind barely registered the accidental thought.
Lily Hale came into the world weighing just over three pounds.
She did not cry.
The room went silent.
Nora's heart stopped.
“Why isn't she crying?”
Dr. Bellucci moved immediately.
The nurse took Lily.
Tiny.
Purple.
Still.
“No.”
Nora tried to sit up.
Lorenzo held her shoulders.
“Let them work.”
“Lily!”
Dr. Harmon coached through the screen.
“Stimulate. Position airway. Bag-mask ventilation.”
Bellucci worked.
Seconds became years.
Nora sobbed.
“Please.”
Lorenzo stared at the tiny body.
He had seen men die.
Nora could tell from his face that none of it had prepared him for this.
Then Lily moved.
A tiny sound escaped her.
Not a full cry.
A weak protest.
It was the most beautiful sound Nora had ever heard.
“She’s breathing,” the nurse said.
Nora collapsed against the pillows.
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
Lily needed oxygen.
Warmth.
A neonatal intensive care unit.
At 5:22, the road crew finally broke through the outer gate.
An ambulance followed.
Nora was loaded first.
Lily was placed in a transport incubator with a neonatal team that had driven behind the plows.
Before they left, Nora saw Giovanni.
Matteo had brought him downstairs.
A blanket covered his legs.
Giovanni looked at the incubator.
Then at Nora.
His finger moved once.
Nora smiled through tears.
“She made it.”
One.
Lorenzo stood beside his father.
Giovanni used the communication board resting across his lap.
Slowly, he spelled:
LILY STRONG.
Nora cried again.
The ambulance doors began closing.
Lorenzo stepped back.
Nora suddenly reached toward him.
He looked surprised.
“Come.”
His face changed.
“With you?”
“Please.”
He looked toward Giovanni.
Giovanni moved one finger.
Go.
Lorenzo climbed into the ambulance.
The doors closed.
By afternoon, Lily was stable in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Nora lay in another room recovering.
Lorenzo remained in the hospital.
He did not leave when the roads cleared.
He did not return to the estate to interrogate Mrs. Gable.
He sat outside the NICU windows watching Lily breathe.
Matteo eventually arrived.
“We decoded the card.”
Lorenzo stood.
Nora, sitting in a wheelchair nearby, looked up.
“What was on it?”
Matteo's expression was grim.
“Mrs. Gable wasn't lying.”
He looked at Lorenzo.
“Brody stole a ledger from Marco Bellanti.”
Nora swallowed.
“And?”
“There are names.”
“Whose?”
Matteo hesitated.
“People inside our organization.”
Lorenzo's eyes hardened.
“How high?”
Matteo looked at Nora.
Then back at Lorenzo.
“High enough that your father's stroke may not have been natural.”
The joy of Lily’s survival vanished beneath a new horror.
Giovanni had spent five years believing illness trapped him inside his body.
May you like
Now there was evidence suggesting someone might have put him there.
And according to Brody's ledger, the person who arranged it had been sitting at Lorenzo Moretti's table ever since.
