My Don Left Me in Labor for Her Comeback Chapter 03

My Don Left Me in Labor for Her Comeback Chapter 03

The men who went for supplies came back.

He brought: theater cleaning rags, a bottle of clean water, and rubber gloves meant for for washing dishes.

“These were all I could find. The third floor’s on full lockdown for the concert.”

I braced myself against the wall, riding out a wave of dizziness so intense the room tilted.

“Get the first aid kit from the hallway. And tonight’s staff duty log.”

The first aid kit contents expired in 2019. I opened the duty log to a blank page and wrote, my hand barely functional:

“20:47 — Patient trapped in VIP lane vehicle. EMS blocked by NYPD concert detail.

20:53 — Security guard refused to open door, did not initiate emergency protocol.

21:05 — Patient forcibly moved to storage closet 4B.

21:08 — Francesca Bianchi, Violetta St. Claire’s personal assistant, refused to notify patient’s husband Massimo DeLuca. 21:12 — Patient communication terminated.”

I signed it: Dr. Serafina DeLuca, MD, FACOG. Deputy Chief of Obstetrics, Mount Sinai Hospital.

The door opened again.

This time it was the Carnegie Hall events director and an in-house physician.

The director knelt beside me and held out a piece of paper.

“Ma’am, before we proceed — Community Health is still twenty minutes out. For liability clarity, please sign this. It confirms you came here on your own accord and the venue isn’t responsible for—”

I looked at the paper. I didn’t sign it.

I flipped it over and wrote, in blood-tinged script: REFUSED TO SIGN. LIABILITY WAIVER PRESENTED AT 21:19 WHILE PATIENT IN ACTIVE OBSTETRIC EMERGENCY.

“Does your emergency protocol manual include a section on laboring women?” I stared at him. My teeth were chattering but my voice held steady.

“You didn’t call 911. You didn’t clear an access lane. You didn’t even radio up to my husband. You prioritized a concert over a human life. You did that. And I’ve documented every single minute.”

The director’s face drained of color.

While they stood there paralyzed, I grabbed the house physician by the wrist and made him sign my vitals into the duty log.

Then I shoved the logbook, my prenatal file, and the signed liability refusal into the FDNY inspection box mounted on the wall outside the storage closet.

The one thing Carnegie Hall couldn’t tamper with. Third-party inspected. Weekly.

From the main hall: a thunderous first wave of applause.

First movement over.

Francesca’s half-hour was up.

Nobody came.

The applause died.

The violin started again.

An encore. Of course. Of fucking course.

Massimo hadn’t just stayed for the performance.

He was basking in the encore.

The next contraction hit with the force of a sledgehammer.

I collapsed forward onto my knees, a pool of blood and amniotic fluid spreading around me.

The baby was crowning — wrong position, wrong place, wrong everything.

Maya Chen burst through the side door.

Sera.

She breathed my name.

Mount Sinai’s ER charge nurse and my closest friend, standing in the doorway of a Carnegie Hall storage closet, her eyes taking in the blood, the rags, the expired first aid kit, in one horrified sweep.

“Sera, 911 is still fighting the perimeter. I just drove here myself. The EMS trucks are lined up on Seventh Avenue but NYPD won’t let them through. The concert has a ‘no disruption’ order from the mayor’s office. St. Claire’s comeback is a goddamn city event.”

Of course it was.

My mafia husband, the powerful Don Massimo had likely arranged it himself.

“Maya.” I grabbed her wrist. “Breech. Meconium. Fetal heart rate was decelerating forty minutes ago. I need an emergency C-section right now! right here!”

“Sera—”

“There’s no time. The baby’s head is stuck. If I don’t deliver right now, we both die in this closet.”

I used her shoulders to push myself upright.

And then I told her exactly what to do.

She found a box cutter in the janitor’s supplies. Boiled water in the staff microwave. The house physician stood frozen by the door, useless and pale. Maya held my hand while I directed my own emergency delivery, in a dusty storage closet, to the distant sound of Violetta St. Claire’s second movement.

There was no anesthetic. No sterile field. No fetal monitor. Just me, my friend’s shaking hands, and a blade that had last been used to cut open cardboard boxes.

I pushed. I screamed.

Then I pushed again.

And my son slid into my own hands.

He was blue.

Blue-purple, limp, so terrifyingly small.

He didn’t cry.

The cord was wrapped around his neck. Twice. Just like the ultrasound had warned.

I sucked fluid from his mouth with my own lips and began neonatal CPR on the cold concrete, counting compressions, my voice flat and clinical because if I allowed myself to feel anything — anything at all — I would shatter.

Maya took over compressions when my arms gave out.

Behind us, through the wall, the violin soared through Violetta’s triumphant finale. The crowd was on its feet.

I could feel the vibration of their ovation through the floor.

Yet, my son still wasn’t breathing.