Chapter 3 - TENDING THE BULLET WOUND
Working under the dim emergency bulb of the storage pantry, Ella’s nursing training kicked in fully. She ripped open his ruined designer shirt to reveal a jagged bullet wound high on his right flank where a 9mm round had torn through muscle and narrowly missed his liver. With shaking hands, she sterilized her instruments, set up an intravenous saline line from the diner's emergency cache, and prepared to stitch the tear. The man watched her every move without a flinch, his jaw clenched tight against the agonizing pain. As she worked, she learned his name was Dante Moretti—a name whispered in hushed, terrified tones across the Massachusetts underworld. He wasn't just a criminal; he was the head of the city's most powerful syndicate, betrayed from within by his own lieutenants who sought to wipe out his bloodline.
The medical supplies in the diner were basic—industrial gauze, antiseptic iodine, suture kits kept for kitchen accidents, and sterile saline. It wasn't a sterile hospital operating room, but it had to be enough. Ella poured iodine directly into the wound, and though Dante didn't cry out, a low, guttural growl vibrated deep within his chest, and his massive hand gripped the edge of a flour sack so hard the fabric tore.
“This is going to hurt,” Ella warned, threading the curved needle.
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“Do it,” he ground out, his voice scraping like broken glass.
As she worked the needle through the torn tissue, sealing the gaping wound stitch by stitch, Dante spoke in fractured sentences between breaths. He told her about the betrayal. How his top captain, Sal Romano, had orchestrated an ambush at his estate, murdering his guards and hunting for his infant children to ensure no heir to the Moretti shipping empire remained alive. Dante had fought his way out of his own home, strapping his six-month-old twins to his chest before stealing a car and driving straight into Southie. Hearing his story, Ella realized the men searching the alley weren't ordinary criminals—they were professional executioners, and by sheltering Dante and his children, she had just painted a massive target on her own back.
