Chapter 5 - The Blood Oath
The words hung in the suffocating air of the small staff room like a heavy, physical weight. Aleandro stood frozen, his dark eyes locked onto the medical report lying on the worn wooden floorboards, then slowly shifted his gaze back to Elena, who was desperately stroking her daughter’s tangled brown curls. In the brutal, black-and-white world Aleandro Moretti ruled, weakness was a death sentence and sentimentality was a bullet to the brain. He had built an entire empire on the absolute certainty that family was nothing more than a liability to be managed or eliminated.
Yet, looking at the little girl clinging to her mother’s skirt, he felt a strange, cold pressure building behind his ribs—a haunting echo of a bloodline he thought he had successfully severed twenty years ago.
"Fifty thousand dollars," Aleandro said, his voice entirely devoid of inflection.
Elena swallowed hard, her voice trembling as she kept her protective arms wrapped tightly around Maya. "I didn't expect you to understand. To a man who wears suits that cost more than a hospital wing, fifty grand is pocket change. To me... it was an impossible mountain. That’s why I stayed. That’s why I kept my head down, cleaned your messes, and tried not to draw your attention. I just needed enough saved up to get her to Boston before..." Her voice cracked, failing her entirely as fresh tears spilled over her cheeks.
Aleandro slowly bent down, his joints making a faint, silent pop, and picked up the medical report. He didn't skim it; he read every single line, absorbing the clinical terminology, the pediatric cardiology notes, the desperate pleas of doctors who could do nothing without financial backing. His jaw tightened so hard a muscle jumped violently in his cheek.
"Salvatore," Aleandro called out sharply toward the open doorway.
A fraction of a second later, Salvatore’s tall frame appeared in the threshold, his hand still resting near his holster, his eyes darting quickly around the room to assess any remaining threat. "Boss? You okay?"
"Get your phone out," Aleandro ordered, his tone leaving zero room for hesitation or argument.
Salvatore blinked in surprise, pulling his encrypted smartphone from his inner pocket with practiced ease. "What do you need, boss? An extraction team? A disposal unit?"
"Call Dr. Harrison at Boston Children’s Hospital," Aleandro instructed coldly, standing up to his full height and towering over both Salvatore and the trembling housekeeper. "Tell him the Moretti family foundation is wiring a retainer of five hundred thousand dollars immediately. Not fifty thousand. Half a million. I want a private pediatric suite, the absolute best cardiologists on the eastern seaboard, and a medical transport helicopter dispatched to Long Island by sunrise tomorrow."
Salvatore’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief. He stared at Aleandro as if his boss had suddenly begun speaking ancient Greek. "Boss... are you sure? That’s—that’s a massive expenditure for staff we haven't even vetted properly, and—"
"Did I stutter, Salvatore?" Aleandro interrupted, his voice dropping into that terrifying, icy register that made even his most trusted lieutenants break out in a cold sweat. "Call Dr. Harrison. Now."
"Yes, boss," Salvatore mumbled, quickly tapping the screen and pressing the phone to his ear as he backed out into the hallway, shooting one last bewildered glance at Elena and the little girl.
Elena sat paralyzed on the edge of the bed, her mouth slightly open, her breath hitching in her throat. She stared up at Aleandro as if he had just turned into a ghost. "You... you're paying for her surgery? Why? After everything... after finding out who I am, why would you do this?"
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Aleandro walked slowly toward the door, his boots making a heavy, measured sound against the floor. He paused at the threshold, not turning around entirely, but casting one long, lingering look back over his shoulder at the little girl who had marched up to him in the grand hall twenty minutes ago and demanded an apology.
"Because, Elena," Aleandro said softly, his voice echoing in the quiet room with a strange, sorrowful finality. "In this house, nobody defies a Moretti. But nobody lets a child die under my roof, either. Pack your bags. You're moving to the master wing tonight."
