Chapter 4 - The St. Jude’s Emergency
The sliding glass doors of St. Jude’s Private Medical Center parted with a sterile hiss, rushing warm, antiseptic-scented air into the lobby.
Damon burst through the entrance, still wearing his ruined, mud-stained trousers and the shirtsleeves that bore the smudges of alley grime. In his arms, swaddled in a multi-thousand-dollar cashmere coat, Lily lay completely silent, her head resting heavily against his shoulder.
"Sir! Sir, you can't bring—" a receptionist began, jumping up from behind the sleek marble counter, her professional smile instantly freezing as she took in Damon's disheveled, wild-eyed appearance.
Then she recognized him.
Color drained from her face. Aosta Capital didn't just own stakes in this hospital; they held the primary underwriting debt that kept the wing functioning.
"Mr. Aosta?" she gasped, her hands hovering uselessly over her keyboard.
"Get a trauma team. Now," Damon commanded. His voice cut through the lobby with a lethal, absolute authority that left no room for hesitation. "Pediatric emergency. Severe hypothermia, malnutrition, smoke inhalation. If she isn't in a warm bed with a specialist attending her in thirty seconds, I will personally fire every administrator in this building before the hour is out."
Panic rippled through the staff. Within seconds, nurses with a gurney appeared from the back corridors, wheeling equipment that clattered against the tile floor.
"Mr. Aosta, let us take her—" a senior physician urged, rushing forward with a stethoscope already in hand.
"No," Damon said, his grip tightening around the child. "I'm carrying her."
He walked with them down the bright, humming corridor into an examination room, refusing to let go until the nurses gently eased the cashmere coat from his shoulders and transferred Lily onto the heated examination table. Bright overhead lights illuminated the horrifying reality of her condition: the purple bruises on her arms, the raw, blistered skin on her heels, the hollows of her cheeks.
Damon stood against the wall, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, watching the medical team move with urgent precision. Oxygen tubes were taped to her face. IV lines were punched into the dehydrated veins of her tiny arm.
Dr. Hayes, the head of pediatrics, stepped away from the bed and walked over to Damon, his expression grave.
"She's severely malnourished, Mr. Aosta. Her core temperature is dangerously low—32 degrees Celsius. She has a mild respiratory infection from the smoke inhalation, and her immune system is practically nonexistent. Another night in that alley..." He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.
Damon stared at the floor, the polished white linoleum reflecting the harsh lights.
"Will she live?" Damon asked.
"Yes," Dr. Hayes said carefully. "She's tough, surprisingly so. But she needs weeks of round-the-clock care, nutritional therapy, and psychological stabilization. Who is she to you?"
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Damon looked back through the glass at Lily, whose small chest rose and fell in a steady, monitored rhythm beneath a clean hospital blanket.
"She's my responsibility," Damon said quietly. "Get her the best room you have. Bring in the top specialists. I want a 24-hour guard outside this door, and I want no press, no leaks, and no interference."
