Chapter 2
PART 2
Dominic had blood on his hands from a dozen different lives, but nothing had ever felt as horrifying as touching his daughter’s cold face.
He slid one hand beneath Ava’s neck and tilted her head the way Nora ordered. His fingers shook against the delicate line of her jaw. Ava’s skin felt wrong—too cold, too loose, like the world had already begun giving her back.
“Easy,” Nora said, breathless. “Keep her airway open.”
“What did she take?” Dominic asked.
His voice was quiet. That was worse than shouting. Men who knew him would have stepped back from that tone.
Nora did not.
“How would I know?” she snapped. “I was wiping down booths. I found her locked in a bathroom with a phone in her hand.”
“Was there a bag? Powder? Pills?”
“There was vomit, water, and a dead-looking kid. I didn’t stop to inventory your nightmare.”
She leaned down, breathed into Ava’s mouth twice, then returned to compressions. Dominic watched her hands slam down again and again. Rough hands. Working hands. Knuckles cracked raw from soap and winter air. Not the hands of someone who belonged anywhere near his world.
Yet those hands were doing what his could not.
“Come on,” Nora whispered. “Come on, Ava.”
Dominic’s head snapped up.
“You know her name?”
“Driver’s license,” Nora said. “Now stop interrogating me and talk to your daughter.”
Dominic looked down.
Ava’s lips had a bluish tint that made his stomach turn. Her black nail polish was chipped. The left sleeve of her expensive jacket was wet. She looked impossibly young. Younger than seventeen. Younger than the rage she carried. Younger than the grief he had made her inherit.
“Ava,” he said.
The word broke inside his mouth.
Nora pushed harder.
“Again,” she ordered.
Dominic swallowed. “Ava. Baby. It’s Dad. Stay with me.”
The sirens were still distant.
Too distant.
He wanted to call every cop he owned, every city official who owed him favors, every ambulance supervisor in Cook County. He wanted to drag time backward with his bare hands.
Instead, he held his daughter’s head and watched a waitress fight death on a diner floor.
Ava’s body jerked.
Nora froze for half a second, fingers flying to Ava’s neck.
Then Ava gasped—a wet, ugly, animal sound.
“Roll her!” Nora shouted.
Dominic moved instantly. Together, they turned Ava onto her side. She vomited onto the tile, her body convulsing. Dominic held her hair back, his coat sleeve soaking in dirty water and bile. He did not care.
Ava’s eyes fluttered open.
For one second, she seemed to look straight at him.
“Mom?” she whispered.
Dominic’s face went still.
Nora’s eyes flicked toward him, sharp enough to catch the wound before he could hide it.
“No, sweetheart,” Dominic said, his voice barely human. “It’s me.”
Ava’s eyes rolled back.
The ambulance arrived like a cavalry too late to claim victory. Paramedics rushed into the cramped bathroom, voices sharp, equipment clattering. One of them tried to move Dominic aside. He almost broke the man’s wrist on instinct.
Nora caught his sleeve.
“Let them work,” she said.
He looked down at her hand on his arm.
No one touched Dominic Hale without permission. Not cops. Not rivals. Not even family anymore.
Nora released him as if she had touched a hot stove. “Don’t make this about your ego. Move.”
He moved.
In the ambulance, Dominic sat beside Ava’s stretcher, one hand wrapped around her fingers. Nora sat across from him, arms crossed, soaked shoes leaving small puddles on the metal floor. The paramedic pushed medication into Ava’s IV. Oxygen fogged the mask over her face.
Dominic stared at the rise and fall of her chest as if he could command it to continue.
After several minutes, he looked at Nora.
“You’re coming to the hospital.”
“No, I’m going back to work.”
“You saved my daughter’s life.”
“And I still have side work,” Nora said. “Coffee pots don’t clean themselves.”
Dominic leaned forward. “You found her. You know where she was. You’re a witness.”
Nora gave him a flat look. “Is that mob-boss language for thank you?”
The paramedic glanced up, suddenly very interested in the IV bag.
Dominic’s face hardened. “Do you know who I am?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re speaking to me like that?”
Nora’s mouth twitched, but it was not a smile. “Mr. Hale, I make fourteen dollars an hour. My landlord put an eviction notice under my door yesterday. My car sounds like a washing machine full of bricks. I just cracked a teenager’s ribs to keep her breathing. Your reputation does not scare me tonight.”
Dominic stared at her.
Outside the ambulance windows, Chicago blurred past in streaks of red, white, and rain.
The hospital swallowed them in fluorescent light.
St. Catherine’s Medical Center was full of polished floors, exhausted nurses, and the quiet misery of people waiting for news they could not control. Dominic hated it immediately.
A nurse tried to stop him at the trauma doors.
“Sir, family has to wait here.”
“I am her father.”
“And we are trying to save her. Wait here.”
Dominic stepped closer. “Open the doors.”
The nurse stiffened.
Nora appeared beside him. She had been trailing behind, unnoticed until that moment.
“Back up,” she said.
Dominic did not turn. “This is not your concern.”
“It became my concern when I had your daughter’s vomit on my shoes.” Nora moved in front of him, fearless and furious. “They know what they’re doing. You don’t. Sit down.”
The nurse looked at Nora like she had just witnessed a miracle or a murder.
Dominic stared at the waitress. His anger rose, huge and old, ready to flatten the room.
Then behind the trauma doors, someone shouted, “Pressure’s dropping.”
Dominic sat down.
Nora returned ten minutes later with two cups of vending-machine coffee. She shoved one into his hand.
“It tastes like burned tires,” she said. “Drink it anyway.”
Dominic took it.
May you like
Their fingers touched.
Hers were ice-cold.
