Page 2 of Break For Me
"Forty minutes, Rocco."
The line goes dead.
I stare at the black screen. My jaw is on fire. My ribs send a deep, nauseating throb through me with every breath. My hands are so swollen I can barely grip my duffel bag.
But Alessandro said forty minutes.
I pull a black henley over my head. The fabric catches on the scabs across my knuckles. The smell of the ring stays on me—copper, sweat, and the acrid scent of the kid’s panic. I don't have anyone to stay clean for.
The drive to Mill Basin takes thirty minutes. I run every red light. My truck is a black F-250 that smells of gun oil and old coffee. I keep the radio off. Music makes me think, and thinking is a liability.
The compound is a limestone fortress behind a twelve-foot wall. A monument to our father’s ego. He wanted a palazzo. Heended up with his brains on the library wallpaper. He left his empire to a strategist and a pit bull.
I’m the one with the collar.
The guard at the gate nods and waves me through. I park and sit in the cab for a second. I wipe a streak of dried blood from my temple and head inside.
Alessandro is in the study. He gutted the place after the funeral. New paint. New carpet. He erased our father’s death with the same efficiency he uses to run the docks.
He’s sitting behind a mahogany desk, jacket gone, sleeves rolled up. He looks like a man who has never felt a fist hit his face. He looks like he belongs in a boardroom, not a war.
He looks up. His eyes track the damage on my face—the swollen cheek, the blackening jaw. He doesn't ask about the fight.
"Sit."
I sit. The leather chair groans.
He slides a folder across the desk. "Killian Kavanagh was shot four hours ago."
The words hit me like a kick to the gut. Killian. That Irish bastard. He married my brother a year ago in a deal that felt like a hostage swap. I didn't like him, but he was the only thing keeping the peace.
"How bad?"
"Two rounds. Shoulder and abdomen." Alessandro’s voice is tight. "He’s alive. But the gut wound is the problem. A bowel perforation. If he doesn't get surgery in forty-eight hours, he’s a corpse."
"Take him to an ER."
Alessandro’s jaw sets. "If he shows up in a hospital, every fed in the city will be in my bedroom by morning. The truce is failing. If word gets out that the Kavanagh Underboss isdown, the Russians will move. It’ll be open season on both our families."
I rub my jaw. It clicks. "What do you need from me?"
He slides a second, thinner folder over. I open it.
A photograph. A man leaving a medical building. Tall. Thin. Silver hair at the temples, wears glasses. His face is all sharp angles. He looks like he’s made of ice and wire. He carries a briefcase and moves with a stiffness that suggests he’s forgotten how to relax.
Dr. Adrian Sterling.
I read the sheet. Trauma surgeon. Trained at Johns Hopkins. Lost his career three years ago after a kid died on his table. The medical board stripped him. The world threw him away.
Then the Russians found him.
He’s been their ghost surgeon for two years. Private clinic, Upper East Side. Armed guards. Discretion.
"He’s Russian property," I say, closing the file.
"He’s the only one who can save Killian without a record."
I look at my brother. "You’re a surgeon, Alessandro. You did the time. You’ve patched him up before. Why aren't you doing it?"
