The transition from the private clinic to the "Intermediate Zone" was executed with the surgical precision of a tactical extraction. In Elena Rossi’s world, a hospital discharge was not a milestone of family life; it was a breach in security that needed to be closed as quickly as possible.
Elena sat in the back of the black sedan, her spine rigid despite the deep, thrumming ache in her core. Every time the car hit a pothole in the uneven New York pavement, a sharp, white-hot flash of pain radiated from her incision site, but she didn't allow her expression to flicker. Beside her, strapped into a high-safety-rated carrier, Matteo was a silent passenger. He didn't fuss or wail like the infants she had heard through the thin walls of the clinic. He simply watched the shifting patterns of lig
