Chapter 2 - The Heartbeat in the Dark
The shouting in the grand study downstairs had started exactly seven minutes after Dr. Vale covered Gabriel Falcone’s face with the sheet.
Matilda stood in the shadow of the heavy velvet drapes in the master bedroom, her large hands clasped tightly over her white apron. Through the thick, double-paned glass of the bedroom doors, the muffled roars of Carmine Russo and the captains echoed up the spiral marble staircase. They weren't mourning. They were dividing the spoils. They were arguing over who would control the docks, who would take the casino skim, and who would sit in the high-backed leather chair in the study.
To them, the man on the bed was already history. A monument that had fallen, leaving behind a vast territory to be looted.
But Matilda could not take her eyes off the silhouette beneath the white linen.
She walked slowly toward the bed. Her steps, usually so quiet and apologetic, felt heavy, like she was wading through deep, cold water. The room was freezing; the heating system in the east wing had been malfunctioning for days, and the winter wind off Lake Michigan battered the glass like a clawed hand.
She reached the bedside. The skin of her fingers brushed against the hem of the sheet.
"Mr. Falcone," she whispered.
There was no answer. Only the rhythmic, distant shouting from downstairs.
"I built the West Side crews!" Carmine’s voice cut through the floorboards. "The throne is mine, you greedy bastards!"
Matilda pulled back the sheet.
Gabriel’s face was utterly still. In the pale moonlight filtering through the frosted windows, his sharp jawline and high cheekbones looked as though they had been carved from white marble. The smoke-gray eyes that had once commanded absolute silence in rooms full of killers were closed. His skin was cold—not the icy chill of a long-dead body, but the clammy, draining cold of a man whose fire had just been snuffed out.
She reached down, her thick fingers trembling as she pressed them against the side of his throat, searching for the carotid artery.
Nothing.
She pressed harder, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Then, she felt it.
It was not a pulse. Not yet. It was a tiny, microscopic flutter—a faint, desperate vibration beneath the skin, like the wing of a dying butterfly trapped behind a pane of glass. It was so faint that a trained doctor, rushed and terrified of the armed men waiting outside the door, would have missed it. Dr. Vale had been sweating, his hands shaking as he declared the time of death, eager to escape before the shooting started.
But Matilda had spent her whole life paying attention to the things people missed.
"You're not dead," she breathed.
Her mind raced. She wasn't a doctor, but she had spent three years caring for her bedridden grandmother before taking this job. She knew the mechanics of life. She knew that when the heart stops, the brain begins to die within minutes. If she did nothing, the tiny flutter beneath her fingers would vanish forever, and Gabriel Falcone would truly become the ghost they all wanted him to be.
She climbed onto the edge of the high mattress. The wooden frame groaned under her weight, but she didn't care. She positioned her knees on either side of his hips, her massive frame towering over him in the darkness.
She placed the heel of her right hand in the center of his chest, locking her left hand over it.
One. Two. Three. Four.
She pushed down with the full force of her weight. The bones of his chest gave a slight, terrifying creak beneath her hands.
"Stay," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Please stay."
Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
Downstairs, a glass shattered. A man screamed a curse. The vultures were tearing each other apart over a crown that wasn't theirs yet. They had forgotten about the body upstairs. To them, a dead king was just a carcass.
Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
Matilda’s muscles began to burn. The physical effort of performing chest compressions on a man of Gabriel’s size was immense, but she refused to slow down. She kept her elbows locked, using the weight of her upper body to drive the blood through his dormant veins.
Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.
She leaned down, pinched his nose, covered his cold lips with her own, and blew two deep breaths into his lungs. His chest rose, then fell.
She went back to the compressions.
The minutes stretched into an eternity. The grandfather clock in the corner of the room ticked with agonizing slowness. 11:55 p.m. 12:05 a.m. 12:15 a.m.
Her sweat dripped onto his chest, mixing with the cold sheen of his skin. Her arms shook violently. The pain in her lower back was a screaming agony, but every time she felt like giving up, she remembered the foyer. She remembered the way he had looked at her—not with pity, not with disgust, but as a human being worthy of defense.
"Pick her up. Apologize."
"I won't let them have you," she whispered, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "I won't let them put you in the ground."
At 12:30 a.m., she felt a sudden, sharp twitch beneath her palms.
She froze, her hands still pressed against his breastbone.
For three agonizing seconds, there was silence.
Then, a low, shuddering gasp tore from Gabriel’s throat. His chest rose violently, sucking in the cold air of the bedroom. His eyes didn't open, but his fingers twitched, grasping weakly at the silk sheets.
Matilda’s heart leapt. She quickly pressed her fingers to his neck again.
The pulse was there. It was weak, erratic, and dangerously slow, but it was there.
Thump... thump... thump...
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She had brought him back from the edge of the abyss. But she knew this was only the beginning of the nightmare. If Carmine or any of his men walked through that door and saw Gabriel Falcone breathing, they would finish the job. A living boss was a threat to their newly claimed power.
She had to keep his heart beating until dawn. And she had to do it in complete, terrifying secrecy.
