Chapter 9 - TWELVE HOURS TO SAVE NICO
The bullet missed Lorenzo’s heart by less than an inch.
Maya rode beside him to the hospital.
Elena followed with Nico.
Isabella was taken into federal custody.
Victor Crane disappeared behind armored doors.
For six hours, surgeons worked.
At dawn, Lorenzo survived.
Maya should have felt relief.
Instead, something bothered her.
Crane’s smile.
She couldn’t forget it.
At 8:15 a.m., Nico vomited.
Maya was beside him immediately.
His skin was pale.
Pulse elevated.
“No.”
Elena looked terrified.
“What?”
Maya checked his pupils.
Then his temperature.
“He’s reacting again.”
“But nobody gave him anything.”
Exactly.
Nico had been under hospital supervision.
No suspicious bottles.
No injections.
No Crane.
Yet the symptoms were returning.
Maya ordered new toxicology tests.
The result arrived ninety minutes later.
The original sedative was gone.
A different compound had appeared.
A slow-release toxin.
Maya stared at the report.
“How long could this have been in his system?”
The toxicologist hesitated.
“Potentially days.”
Her stomach dropped.
Crane hadn’t been poisoning Nico merely to cause nightly episodes.
He had used those episodes to hide something more dangerous.
A second substance accumulating slowly inside the baby.
“How long?”
“We can’t know exactly.”
“Worst case.”
The physician looked at her.
“Twelve hours before serious organ damage.”
Elena nearly collapsed.
Maya caught her.
“We can treat it.”
“With what?”
“We need to identify the exact compound first.”
Crane knew.
And Crane wasn’t talking.
Federal investigators refused Lorenzo access to him.
Lorenzo was barely conscious after surgery anyway.
So Maya did something nobody expected.
She went to Isabella.
Isabella sat inside an interview room wearing prison clothes.
Her face was exhausted.
“You hate me,” she said.
“I don’t know you well enough.”
“You should.”
“I don’t have time.”
Maya placed the toxicology report on the table.
“Nico is dying.”
Isabella’s face emptied.
“What?”
“Crane put something else in him.”
“No.”
“He did.”
Tears filled Isabella’s eyes.
“What do you need?”
“Everything you know about his laboratory.”
Isabella told her.
Crane had experimented with timed-release compounds for years.
He called one project Lazarus.
Maya remembered the files.
The refrigerated storage.
The numbered patients.
“What does Lazarus do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“He once said it could make a death look natural.”
That was enough.
Marco took Maya back to the abandoned clinic.
Federal agents accompanied them.
They searched everything.
Three hours passed.
Nothing.
Then Maya noticed the refrigeration temperature.
Two degrees Celsius.
Too cold for ordinary medication storage.
She removed the shelves.
Behind them was a hidden compartment.
Inside were vials.
One label:
LZ-12.
The antidote was stored beside it.
Maya almost cried.
At the hospital, Nico received treatment.
For two hours, nothing happened.
Then his heart rate stabilized.
His color improved.
At 7:44 p.m., he opened his eyes.
Elena held him against her chest and sobbed.
Maya stepped outside.
Lorenzo was awake.
Weak.
Pale.
But awake.
“Is he alive?”
Maya nodded.
“He’s going to be okay.”
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
One tear slid down the side of his face.
“Thank you.”
Maya sat beside him.
“You should thank your sister too.”
His eyes opened.
“Isabella?”
“She told us about Lazarus.”
Silence.
“She saved Nico.”
“After helping put him in danger.”
“Yes.”
Life was inconvenient that way.
People were rarely one thing.
Lorenzo looked toward the ceiling.
“What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Nothing tonight.”
He turned toward Maya.
“You always have an answer.”
“No. I’m just comfortable admitting when there isn’t one.”
A faint smile appeared.
Then disappeared.
“Elena wants to leave me.”
Maya had expected it.
“She told you?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“That I understood.”
Maya studied him.
“Did you?”
“No.”
At least he was honest.
“She loves you,” Maya said.
“That makes it worse.”
“Sometimes.”
“She said she can forgive the man I was, but she won’t raise Nico around the man I still am.”
Lorenzo looked at his hands.
Hands that had signed orders.
Built fear.
Controlled men.
“Maybe she’s right.”
Maya didn’t answer.
He looked at her.
“You agree.”
“I think Nico deserves a father who comes home.”
That landed.
“What if I don’t know how to become that man?”
“You learn.”
“From who?”
Maya smiled slightly.
“Your son.”
Over the following week, Chicago’s criminal world shifted.
Victor Crane was charged with kidnapping, attempted murder, poisoning, fraud and conspiracy.
Federal investigators opened cases involving the medical network.
Isabella agreed to cooperate.
Elena’s death certificate was voided.
Adriana recovered from her gunshot wound.
And Lorenzo made a decision nobody expected.
He began dismantling his organization.
Not overnight.
That would have started a war.
Instead, legitimate businesses were separated.
Illegal operations were closed.
Weapons routes were abandoned.
Men who wanted out were paid.
Men who wanted war were removed from positions where they could create one.
For the first time in twenty years, Lorenzo Bolaro was using power to make himself less powerful.
Maya watched from a distance.
Her assignment was ending.
Nico no longer needed a night nurse.
Elena was home.
His doctors were confident.
The danger was gone.
So Maya packed her bag.
At 6:00 p.m. on her final evening, she walked into the nursery.
Nico sat on the carpet, grabbing wooden stars from his mobile.
“You’re going to cause trouble,” Maya told him.
He laughed.
She kissed his forehead.
When she turned, Elena stood in the doorway.
“You’re leaving.”
“My contract is finished.”
“Nico loves you.”
“I love him too.”
Elena smiled sadly.
“So does Lorenzo.”
Maya froze.
“Elena—”
“I’m not blind.”
“That isn’t—”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“No.”
“I know.”
Elena entered.
“My marriage ended before you walked through that door.”
Maya looked down.
“I would never—”
“I know that too.”
Elena touched her arm.
“Lorenzo and I loved each other. Part of me always will. But surviving changed me.”
“And him.”
“Yes.”
Elena smiled.
“Maybe that’s what survival does.”
Maya picked up her bag.
At the front door, Lorenzo was waiting.
“You were going to leave without saying goodbye.”
“I’m saying goodbye now.”
He looked at the bag.
“You could stay.”
“As what?”
The question stopped him.
“Nico’s nurse?”
“He doesn’t need one.”
“Then stay as…”
He couldn’t finish.
Maya rescued him.
“You need time.”
“So do you.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
She walked toward the door.
“Maya.”
She turned.
“I don’t know what my life looks like without all of this.”
She understood what he meant.
The empire.
The fear.
Elena.
The chaos.
“I hope you find out.”
Then she left.
Three months passed.
Maya returned to hospital work.
Nights.
NICU.
Normal chaos.
She convinced herself the Bolaro family had been a chapter that had ended.
Then, one rainy November night, she finished a twelve-hour shift and walked into the hospital lobby.
Lorenzo was waiting.
No guards.
No expensive convoy.
No weapon visible beneath his coat.
Just Lorenzo.
Holding Nico.
The baby recognized her immediately.
His arms reached out.
Maya laughed despite herself.
“What are you doing here?”
Lorenzo smiled.
“Nico missed his nurse.”
“And you?”
His eyes held hers.
“I missed the woman who taught me that saving someone and controlling them are not the same thing.”
Maya’s heart stumbled.
Then Lorenzo’s phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
His expression changed.
Maya knew immediately.
“What happened?”
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked at her.
Victor Crane had escaped federal custody.
And the first person he had asked for—
May you like
was Maya Ellis.
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