The Mafia's Undoing-Chapter 62: Chaos

The chaos was deafening with the FBI agents swarming the building and paramedics rushing toward the 12th-floor apartment where we’ve been secured. Body bags were being carried down from the 40th floor, where everything went to hell.

I’m wrapped in a shock blanket that did nothing to stop the trembling. I can’t stop shaking, still can’t process what just happened.

Richard Blackwood had escaped - my former boss, Ricardo Ramírez. The ghost orchestrating everything from the beginning.

Thomas was shot, having multiple wounds, and is still in critical condition.

And Tony-

I push past the FBI agent trying to keep me seated. "I need to see him. I need to see Tony."

"Ma’am, the paramedics are-"

"Now!" My voice breaks. "Please. I need to see him."

The agent’s face softens, and he nods toward the hallway where more paramedics are working.

I run, but the scene stops me cold.

There were three gurneys in the hallway, and there were three bodies receiving emergency care.

The first I recognize immediately - Marco. His face was covered with a sheet. Dead. No paramedics working on him. Just... gone.

The second was Thomas, with the paramedics working frantically, IVs, chest compressions, urgent voices calling out medical terminology I don’t understand.

The third-

Tony and he’s not moving.

Two paramedics were over him, one doing chest compressions, the other preparing a defibrillator. There’s so much blood. His shirt was cut away, revealing the bullet wounds, the bandages from his previous injury now soaked red.

"Clear!" The paramedic charges the defibrillator.

Tony’s body arches off the gurney as electricity jolts through him.

No response.

"Again! Clear!"

Another shock.

I can’t breathe. The world has narrowed to Tony’s still form, the paramedics working to restart his heart, the monitors showing lines that should be jumping but aren’t.

"Katherine." Luca’s beside me, his hand on my shoulder with blood seeping through a bandage on his own side. "Let them work. Let them do their job."

"He’s not moving." My voice sounds foreign - high and panicked. "Luca, he’s not-"

"He’s strong. The stubborn bastard won’t die." But I hear the fear in Luca’s voice, too.

The paramedic checks for pulse. It was a long, terrible moment before he called out. "Got it! Weak, but there. Let’s move!"

They’re loading Tony onto a stretcher, moving fast toward the ambulance waiting outside. I’m running after them, Luca trying to keep up despite his own injury.

"Family only!" A paramedic tries to block me from climbing into the ambulance.

"I’m his-" I don’t know what to say... not wife, not fiancée. Just- "I’m his..."

The paramedic sees my face and steps aside. "Get in. But stay out of the way."

I climb in and press myself against the wall as they secure Tony’s stretcher. The doors slam as the sirens start.

Manhattan General is twelve blocks away, but it feels like twelve miles.

I hold Tony’s hand, mindful of the IVs, the monitors, and the tubes. His skin is so cold.

"You promised," I whisper, leaning close. "You promised we’d face everything together. Don’t you dare break that promise now... don’t you dare leave me."

The paramedic working on him doesn’t look up. "Multiple GSWs. Severe blood loss. Possible internal injuries. BP dropping. We need to move faster."

The driver runs another red light.

I squeeze Tony’s hand tighter. "I love you, do you hear me? I love you. So you stay. You fight. You come back to me."

No response. Just the steady beep of monitors, the hiss of oxygen, the clinical efficiency of people trying to save a life.

We screech to a stop at Manhattan General’s trauma entrance. Doors fly open with more medical personnel swarming.

They’re pulling Tony’s stretcher out, already moving, calling out medical codes I don’t understand. I try to follow, but a nurse stops me.

"You can’t go back there. Family waiting room is—"

"I’m not leaving him!"

"Ma’am." The nurse’s voice is kind but firm. "You’ll be in the way. Let us work, we’ll update you as soon as we can."

Tony disappears through the double doors. Just... gone.

I stand in the emergency entrance, still wrapped in that useless blanket, covered in blood - his blood, and I can’t move. I can’t process that he’s in there, possibly dying, and I’m out here, helpless.

Luca appears beside me, leaning heavily on a nurse. "Come on, let’s sit in the waiting room. They’ll tell us when there’s news."

The waiting room is an institutional hell. Fluorescent lights, uncomfortable chairs, and a clock that ticks too loudly.

Three surgeries happening simultaneously: Tony, Thomas, and one of Luca’s men, who was hit during the firefight. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

I pace. I couldn’t sit or stop moving because if I stopped moving, I would collapse completely.

Luca watches from his chair, his own injury treated and bandaged. "He’s strong," he says again. "Marvins are too stubborn to die."

"He wasn’t breathing." The words come out strangled. "In the hallway, they had to shock his heart. He wasn’t-"

"But they got him back." Luca’s voice is steady and grounding. "They got him back, Katherine. He’s alive. That’s what matters."

Elliot arrives forty minutes later, escorted by FBI agents. His laptop is gone as evidence now, but he’s clutching his phone like a lifeline.

"Katherine." He doesn’t make eye contact, never does, but he moves toward me with purpose.

And then he hugs me.

The first time he’s initiated physical contact in years. His arms awkwardly around me, with his body tense from the discomfort of touch, but he’s trying. For me, because he knows I need it.

I break down completely. Sobbing into my little brother’s shoulder while he pats my back with mechanical precision, trying to comfort despite his own struggles with emotional expression.

"Statistics favor survival," he says quietly. "Gunshot wound survival rates in trauma centers are approximately 88% when the patient reaches the hospital alive. Tony arrived alive; he has good odds."

Only Elliot would offer comfort with statistics.

But somehow, it helps.

We sit together - me, Elliot, and Luca - three people connected by violence and survival, waiting for news.

Morrison appears around midnight. She looks exhausted, her face drawn, and her clothes rumpled.

"Status?" she asks.

"Still in surgery." My voice is hoarse from crying. "All three of them."

She sits and pulls out her phone. "Richard Blackwood escaped via helicopter from the roof, but we recovered the building. Arrested eight of his mercenaries and found evidence linking him to the Ramírez family, to Margaret’s operation, to thirty years of planning."

"But he’s gone," Luca says flatly.

"For now." Morrison’s jaw tightens. "We’ll find him. He can’t hide forever."