Chapter 3 - The Sicilian Curse and the Awakening
"Do it," Leo barked, his voice commanding the room with terrifying authority. "You heard her. Get the magnesium."
Dr. Gable stared at Leo as if the underboss had completely lost his mind. "Mr. Rossi, are you out of your mind? Taking medical advice from a cleaning girl over board-certified specialists is pure suicide—"
"I said do it!" Leo roared, racking the slide of his pistol to emphasize the point. The metallic click echoed like a gunshot through the silent bedroom.
Panic rippled through the medical team. Realizing that Leo was entirely unhinged and moments away from opening fire, Dr. Brent swallowed hard, grabbed a vial from the emergency cart, and frantically drew up the correct dosage.
"Pushing two grams of magnesium sulfate IV push now," Dr. Brent announced, his hands visibly shaking as he injected the clear liquid directly into the secondary port of Vincent’s central line.
The room held its collective breath. Every eye locked onto the flickering green lines of the cardiac monitor.
One second. Five seconds. Ten agonizing seconds.
The chaotic, spiking spirals on the screen began to slow down. The violent electrical storm damped its fury, flattening out into broader, more regular oscillations, before suddenly snapping back into a clean, rhythmic, sinus rhythm.
Beep... beep... beep...
The steady, rhythmic pulse of a recovering heart echoed through the speakers.
Vincent Costa’s body relaxed against the mattress. The violent tremors stopped. The terrible ashen gray tone of his skin slowly began to recede, replaced by a faint, natural warmth as his blood pressure stabilized on the digital readout.
The twelve high-priced medical specialists stood in absolute, stunned silence. They looked from the monitor to Dr. Brent, then down at the floor where the terrified maid was still catching her breath.
Dr. Gable opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He looked completely humiliated.
Leo lowered his weapon slowly, sliding it back into his shoulder holster. He turned back toward Olivia, who was still huddled on the floor near the mahogany table, her hands trembling as she rubbed her sore throat.
"Get up," Leo ordered, his voice much quieter now, though still carrying an edge of intense curiosity.
Olivia slowly climbed to her feet, keeping her distance, her chest rising and falling heavily.
Before Leo could question her further, a weak, raspy voice cut through the quiet room like a razor blade.
"What... is all this noise?"
Every head snapped toward the bed.
Vincent Costa’s eyes were open.
They weren't glazed over with fever or clouded by delirium anymore. They were cold, clear, piercing steel-gray eyes that scanned the room with terrifying awareness. He tried to move his arm, wincing slightly as his bruised ribs protested, but he managed to prop himself up slightly against the pillows.
"Boss!" Leo rushed to the side of the bed, relief flashing across his stone-hard face for the first time in eight days. "You're awake. Thank God."
Vincent ignored him at first. His gaze swept slowly across the twelve expensive doctors standing in a row looking like guilty schoolboys, before finally drifting over to the corner of the room.
His gray eyes locked directly onto Olivia.
Olivia shrank back against the wall, wishing the wooden paneling would open up and swallow her whole. She had just broken every rule of her employment, interfered with a high-profile medical crisis, exposed her hidden education, and caught the direct attention of the most dangerous man in the city.
Vincent slowly turned his head toward Leo. His voice was a low, gravelly rasp that required absolute silence in the room to understand.
"Who... is that?"
Leo followed his gaze back to Olivia. A strange expression crossed the underboss's face. "That’s Olivia. She’s part of the cleaning crew. According to her, she’s also the reason your heart didn't explode five minutes ago because these Ivy League idiots poisoned you with a triple QT-prolonging drug cocktail."
Dr. Gable flushed a deep, embarrassed crimson. "Mr. Costa, with all due respect, her unsanctioned interference—"
"Shut up, Gable," Vincent whispered. It wasn't a shout. It was barely above a breath. But the surgical consultant instantly clamped his mouth shut and took a step backward.
Vincent turned his gaze back to Olivia. He studied her shapeless gray uniform, the raw redness of her hands, and the dark bruises forming around her throat where Leo had grabbed her just moments earlier.
A faint, sardonic trace of a smile touched the corners of Vincent’s bruised, pale lips.
"Come closer," Vincent commanded softly.
Olivia’s legs felt like lead. She didn't want to move an inch closer to the mafia boss who ruled the underworld with an iron fist. But under the heavy, watchful gaze of Leo and the dozen armed guards lingering outside the open door, she had no choice.
She took three slow, hesitant steps forward until she stood at the foot of the massive mahogany bed.
"Closer," Vincent repeated.
She stepped right up to the edge of the mattress, her hands clenched tightly into fists at her sides.
Up close, Vincent Costa looked terrifying even in a hospital bed. Despite the bandages and the lingering pallor of near-death, an aura of intense, suppressed power radiated from him.
He tilted his head, his gray eyes piercing straight through her defenses.
"You know pharmacology," Vincent stated, not asking a question. "You recognized amiodarone, moxifloxacin, and ondansetron just by looking at empty glass vials in a trash bin."
Olivia swallowed hard, keeping her voice as steady as she could. "I studied it before... before my father died. I was a student."
"And yet you're scrubbing floors in my house for minimum wage to pay off a dead man's gambling debt," Vincent noted, his voice remarkably analytical.
Frustration, exhaustion, and lingering terror suddenly bubbled up inside Olivia, overriding her fear. She had saved this man’s life, risked getting shot by his underboss, and endured physical assault, all while being treated like dirt.
A flash of defiance sparked in her brown eyes.
She leaned forward slightly, her posture stiffening, and muttered a sharp, bitter string of curses under her breath in fluent, native Sicilian dialect—mocking the arrogant men who thought they owned the world while nearly killing their own boss out of sheer medical incompetence.
“Stupidi arroganti... cani arrabbiati che non sanno nemmeno leggere una cartella clinica, eppure pretendono di comandare la città...”
(Arrogant fools... rabid dogs who don't even know how to read a medical chart, yet pretend to run the city...)
The moment the words left her mouth, Olivia froze, instantly realizing what she had just done. She had cursed the most feared mafia boss in the city, in his own ancestral tongue, right to his face.
The entire room went dead silent. You could hear the digital medical monitors humming from across the estate.
Dr. Gable looked like he was about to faint. Leo’s hand drifted instinctively back toward his shoulder holster, his eyes widening in absolute shock.
Vincent Costa did not look angry.
Instead, a slow, genuine, terrifyingly amused grin spread across his pale face. A low chuckle rumbled deep in his chest, though it immediately cut off into a wince as it strained his healing ribs.
May you like
He fixed his piercing gray eyes on her, his smile widening just a fraction.
"Say that again," Vincent whispered softly, his gaze locked onto hers with intense fascination. "Looking right at me."
