Chapter 4 - The Storm and the Operating Room"MARIA!" I shrieked, my hand clutching the wooden armrest of the chair as a third, violent contraction slammed through my body.
The heavy oak door was thrown open instantly—not by Maria, but by Dante.
He had been standing in the hallway outside my room, as he had every morning for three weeks. He wore a dark dress shirt, his hair disheveled, his face going completely paper-white as he saw the wet floorboards and my pale, sweating face.
"Elena!" Dante gasped, dropping onto his knees beside my chair, his broad hands coming up to frame my face. "What's happening?!"
"The baby...!" I choked out, gasping for air as the contraction squeezed my spine like a vice. "Dante... my water broke!"
Dante didn't freeze. The lethal, decisive instinct that made him ruler of the city took over in a split second.
He scooped my frame into his broad arms, shouting commands at Marco down the stairwell. "GET THE MAYBACH! CALL DR. ARIS AT NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL! TELL THEM THE MORETTI HEIR IS COMING NOW!"
Outside, the February blizzard was a blinding wall of white ice. The wind howled at sixty miles an hour, knocking down power lines across Gold Coast.
The Maybach tore through the empty, snow-covered streets, flanked by three heavy armored SUVs clearing the snowbanks with their high beams.
Inside the rear cabin, I lay back against Dante's broad chest, my head resting in the crook of his neck as another agonizing contraction tore through my abdomen.
My fingers dug into his dark shirt collar so hard I tore the fabric, my tears soaking into his shoulder.
"Dante... it hurts!" I sobbed, my composure completely shattering under the sheer physical violence of early labor. "He's coming too fast!"
Dante didn't pull away. He wrapped his massive arms securely around my shaking body, holding me flush against his beating heart, his broad lips pressed fiercely against my wet forehead, murmuring desperate, raspy prayers into my hair.
"Hold on, my love," Dante wept softly, tears spilling from his gray eyes onto my face. "Hold on for me, Elena! I've got you! Mommy and Daddy have got you!"
At 11:45 p.m., the Maybach slammed to a halt outside the emergency bay of Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
A medical team of eight doctors and nurses swarmed the car, transferring me onto a high-speed gurney, rolling me down the sterile white corridors toward Operating Room 4.
"Her blood pressure is spiking!" Dr. Aris shouted, scanning the cardiac monitors as we moved. "The baby is in a breech presentation! We need an emergency C-section immediately!"
Dante tried to push through the double doors of the operating theater, but two heavy security guards blocked his path.
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"Sir! You need to scrub in!" a nurse yelled.
"Get out of my way!" Dante roared, his voice echoing through the hospital like thunder as he shoved the guards aside, grabbing a sterile blue surgical gown from the rack. "That is my wife! I am not leaving her side!"
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