THE SECRET IN MY FATHER’S HEART

The SUV slammed to a halt on the muddy gravel shoulder of Route 41.

Inside the vehicle, pure chaos erupted.

Marco was thrashing violently against the seat, his teeth clenched, a thin line of white foam escaping his lips. His eyes had rolled back, showing only the whites, as his heart fluttered uselessly at over two hundred beats per minute, pumping no blood to his brain.

“DADDY!” Leo woke up screaming, thrashing against his sister’s grip.

“Hold him, Sofia! Don't let him look!” Rose cried, throwing her arms around the terrified child to shield his eyes.

I didn't have time to be gentle.

“David, pin his shoulders!” I screamed, ripping the plastic packaging off two large external defibrillator pads.

David threw his massive weight across Marco’s upper torso, holding the thrashing mafia boss down against the leather seat.

Marco’s skin was turning a sickening shade of bluish-gray. He had less than thirty seconds before irreversible brain damage set in.

The handheld programmer on the floor was still beeping furiously:

*BURST PACING ACTIVE. OVERRIDE DENIED.*

Dr. Mercer was sitting somewhere in a warm office or a private car, holding a manufacturer tablet, deliberately running a continuous electrical current through the internal leads in Marco’s heart to burn out his myocardium.

“He locked out the internal programmer!” I yelled, slapping the front defibrillator pad hard against Marco’s upper right chest. “I can't shut off Mercer’s signal from here!”

“THEN WHAT DO WE DO?” David shouted, sweat dripping from his nose as he struggled to keep Marco from throwing himself off the seat.

“I have to overpower it!” I cried.

I grabbed the thick circular magnet from my emergency kit—the one I had cut out of Dominic’s chair three hours ago.

“Laura, you said the magnet suspends the device!” Samuel yelled from the front seat.

“It suspends the internal programming!” I shouted, slamming the heavy magnet directly over the surgical scar beneath Marco’s left collarbone.

The amber light on the programmer flickered.

*MAGNET DETECTED. PACING SUSPENDED.*

Marco’s body instantly went completely limp.

His head fell back against the headrest.

His breathing stopped.

The cardiac monitor on the floor dropped from the chaotic zigzag of ventricular tachycardia into a long, flat, unbroken green line.

*BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.*

Asystole.

His heart had stopped entirely.

“DAD!” Sofia wailed.

“Clear the car!” I shouted, ripping the safety cap off the external defibrillator. “David, let go of him! Nobody touch the metal! NOBODY TOUCH HIM!”

I charged the machine.

The high-pitched whine of the capacitor rose: *one thousand... two thousand... three thousand.*

*UNIT CHARGED: 200 JOULES.*

“CLEAR!”

I slammed the red button.

Marco’s entire body jumped six inches off the seat as two hundred joules of raw electrical current surged through his chest.

The flatline continued.

*BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.*

“Come on, Marco,” I growled, placing my hands directly over his sternum and beginning rhythmic, crushing chest compressions. *One, two, three, four.* “You don't get to leave this boy. You promised him ten minutes. One, two, three, four!”

“Please, God,” Rose was crying, clutching her crucifix against her forehead. “Please, holy Mother, spare my boy.”

*One, two, three, four.*

I checked the monitor. Still flat.

“Charging to three hundred!” I barked at David. “Push the blue button on the pack!”

David reached over with a trembling hand and slammed the button.

The machine whined again, louder this time.

*UNIT CHARGED: 300 JOULES.*

“CLEAR!”

I hit the switch.

A violent jolt lifted Marco’s torso.

The screen went black for one agonizing second under the electrical artifact.

Then:

*Beep.*

A pause.

*Beep.*

A sharp, upright QRS complex appeared on the green line.

*Beep.*

Marco’s chest heaved with a massive, sucking gasp of air. He coughed violently, his eyes snapping open, his fingers instantly clawing into my forearm.

His pulse rate: 68. Steady. Strong. Sinus rhythm.

I collapsed back onto my heels against the car door, my lungs burning, my arms trembling with exhaustion.

Marco looked up at me through the dim light of the cabin. His hand remained locked around my wrist, not with violence, but with a fierce, unbreakable gratitude.

“You... brought me back,” he whispered, his voice shredded to a rasp.

“Don't get used to it,” I panted, wiping sweat from my forehead with the back of my bloody glove. “That was your last free pass tonight, Marco.”

In the back seat, little Leo slipped out of his sister’s arms. He crept forward, reaching his small hand between the front seats, and touched Marco’s soot-stained cheek.

“Daddy?”

Marco turned his head slowly. He brought his son’s tiny hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles.

“I’m here, buddy,” Marco choked out. “Daddy’s here.”

Up front, Samuel’s phone rang.

David picked it up, hit speaker, and held it out.

A trembling, panicked voice filled the car.

“Victor?” the voice stammered. “Victor, the telemetry signal just dropped. The telemetry says his rhythm restored. Did you finish him? Victor, answer me! If Marco survives, he’ll execute us both!”

It was Dr. Arthur Mercer.

Marco stared at the phone. He reached out with his free hand, took the receiver from David, and brought it to his mouth.

“Mercer,” Marco said.

The line went completely dead of sound on the other end. You could hear the old doctor’s ragged breathing.

“M-Marco?” Mercer whimpered.

“I’m alive,” Marco said softly, his voice carrying the finality of a tombstone closing. “And you have exactly thirty minutes to tell me which hotel Victor is hiding in, or I let Samuel handle your family the way you handled mine.”

A sob broke from Mercer’s throat.

“The Drake,” Mercer wept. “Penthouse suite. Victor called a meeting of the five syndicate elders for five o'clock this morning. He’s presenting Dominic’s forged will to take control of the family.”

Marco clicked the call off.

He looked at David.