Chapter 2 - Sirens in the Driveway
The shrill wail of the ambulance sirens shattered the suffocating atmosphere of the mansion.
Within ninety seconds, red and blue emergency lights flashed through the tall stained-glass windows of the entryway. Two paramedics burst through the double front doors carrying heavy trauma bags and a folding stretcher, flanked by two uniformed Boston police officers.
"Where's the patient?" the lead paramedic shouted, sweeping his eyes over the bizarre scene: guests in suits standing frozen, my brother picking himself up off the floor, and me leaning over a mahogany coffin.
"Here!" I yelled, waving them over. "She's in deep respiratory depression! Her pulse is bradycardic, under thirty beats per minute! She's thirty-eight weeks pregnant!"
The lead paramedic, a veteran named Miller, rushed to the coffin. The moment he set his fingers on Elena's neck, his eyes widened in absolute shock. "Jesus Christ... she's alive! Get the gurney! Now!"
The room erupted into chaos. The second paramedic whipped out a bag-valve mask, placing it over Elena's face to manually force oxygen into her lungs, while Miller prepped an intravenous line.
"What happened here?" one of the police officers, Officer Higgins, demanded, stepping between Marcus and me. "Why is a living woman in a casket?"
My mother stepped forward smoothly, her voice laced with practiced authority. "Officer, please. This is a tragic misunderstanding. The private family physician pronounced her dead early this morning. We were simply following medical instructions—"
"Which physician, ma'am?" Higgins interrupted, pulling out his notepad. "Name and license number. Right now."
Victoria hesitated, her flawless composure cracking for a fraction of a second. "Dr... Dr. Arthur Vance. He’s our family’s private practitioner."
"Vance isn't an emergency physician," I snapped, stepping beside the officer. "Officer, my wife was bruised on her throat and arms. Someone heavily sedated her with a paralytic agent and tried to bury her before my flight landed from overseas!"
Marcus interjected, his voice trembling despite his best efforts to sound calm. "Daniel is out of his mind with grief! He’s been in the Middle East for eighteen months—he doesn't know what's been happening with Elena's health!"
"Shut up, Marcus!" I roared, stepping toward him. Officer Higgins immediately put a hand on my chest, holding me back.
"Everyone back up!" Higgins commanded. "This is now an active crime scene! Nobody leaves this house!"
The paramedics lifted Elena carefully out of the coffin, transferring her onto the gurney. Her body was limp, her head falling back, revealing the full extent of the dark purple bruises along her neck.
"We're transporting her to Massachusetts General Trauma Unit," Miller yelled, rolling the gurney rapidly toward the front door. "She needs emergency intubation and an immediate fetal monitor!"
"I'm going with her," I said, following them closely.
"Daniel, wait!" Victoria called out, her voice sharp, reaching for my arm as I passed her. "You cannot abandon your family during a crisis!"
I stopped and turned to my mother. The woman who had raised me, the woman who had stood beside an open casket containing my living wife and told me not to make a scene.
"You are not my family anymore, Victoria," I said, my voice dropping into a register colder than death. "If my wife or my son dies today, I will make sure you and Marcus spend the rest of your lives in a federal prison."
I didn't wait for her reply. I ran out the front door into the brisk autumn air and leaped into the back of the ambulance beside the paramedics.
As the doors slammed shut and the driver hit the sirens, I took Elena's cold, limp hand in mine, watching the cardiac monitor beep agonizingly slow.
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"Hold on, Elena," I whispered, pressing her fingers to my lips. "Hold on for our boy."
Behind the ambulance, standing on the porch of the mansion, Marcus and Victoria watched us leave. Marcus was on his phone, pacing frantically, while my mother stood like a dark statue, realizing that the web of lies they had built was about to unravel under the glare of hospital lights and police spotlights.
