Chapter 2: A Queen's Contempt

Chapter 2: A Queen's Contempt

For two blessed hours, the kingdom was at peace.

Sometime mid-morning, the crimson Lancia had vanished. Leo, watching from his perch, felt a knot of tension in his shoulders ease. He’d found the violation notice he’d written crumpled into a small, defiant ball and tossed into a nearby bin. An insult, yes, but the car was gone. He allowed himself to believe that his small act of defiance, combined with the sheer inconvenience of a loading dock, had worked. Maybe the queen had found a more suitable place to park her carriage. The rhythm of the dock returned, the symphony playing its familiar, reassuring tune.

Then, at 11:45, the music stopped again.

The Lancia returned, a flash of insolent red against the grey concrete. It slid back into the exact same spot at the foot of The Dragon, its engine purring for a moment before cutting out with a contemptuous silence. It was no longer a mistake or an oversight. This was a message. This was a middle finger cast in gleaming Italian steel.

Leo’s fury, which had been simmering, now came to a rolling boil. This wasn’t just about the oxygen tank anymore. This was about the deliberate, smug assertion that he, his team, and their rules simply did not matter. He descended the stairs, his steps heavy. He wouldn't use the radio. He wouldn't call security. This required a personal touch.

The driver's door opened and a woman emerged. The word ‘beautiful’ was an understatement; it was an insufficient, flimsy description for the vision of aristocratic perfection that now stood beside the tiny car. She was in her early forties, with blonde hair sculpted into a flawless chignon. A cream-colored power suit hugged a figure that had clearly never known manual labor. Diamonds glittered at her ears and throat, catching the harsh industrial lights and fracturing them into a thousand tiny rainbows. This had to be Isabella di Stefano.

She was pulling a slim cigarette from a gold case when Leo approached, stopping a respectful but firm ten feet away.

"Ma'am," he said, his voice calm and even, a practiced discipline holding the anger in check.

Isabella di Stefano didn't look at him. Her attention was on her cigarette, her perfectly manicured fingers shielding the flame of a matching gold lighter from a non-existent breeze. She took a long, slow drag, her gaze fixed somewhere above his head, as if he were a particularly uninteresting stain on the wall.

"Ma'am, I'm Leo Rossi, the warehouse manager," he tried again. "You can't park here. This is a restricted hazard zone. That tank," he gestured with his chin towards The Dragon, "is liquid oxygen. This entire area needs to be clear for emergency access and for the twice-weekly tanker delivery."

She finally deigned to look at him. Her eyes, a startling shade of blue, swept over his work jacket, his calloused hands, and his steel-toed boots with an expression of profound distaste. It wasn't anger. It was the weary boredom of a monarch being troubled by a scullery maid.

"And?" she said, her voice a silken, condescending drawl. She exhaled a plume of smoke in his general direction.

The single word hung in the air, thick with dismissal. "And," Leo said, his jaw tightening, "you need to move your car. Now."

A small, cruel smile played on her lips. "I don't think I do. I am meeting my husband for lunch. I will be back in an hour. Perhaps two. The hospital can surely survive." She turned to walk away.

"No, it can't," Leo said, his voice sharper this time, stopping her in her tracks. "The oxygen tanker arrives at 1500. If it can't dock with that tank, the hospital's main supply is cut off. That puts every patient on a ventilator at risk."

Isabella turned back slowly, her expression of boredom curdling into annoyance. "Do you have any idea who I am?"

"I know exactly who you are," Leo said, the words tasting like metal. "That doesn't change the laws of physics. Or hospital policy."

She took a step closer, the scent of her expensive perfume warring with the diesel fumes. "Let me explain something to you, Mr. Rossi," she purred, weaponizing his name. "My family built the oncology wing of this hospital. My husband runs this hospital. The rules, the tiresome little policies that people like you cling to, are for the commoners. Not for me. Are we clear?"

"This car is a danger to every patient and staff member in this building," Leo stated, holding her gaze.

Her smile vanished completely. "You are a piece of furniture that is learning to talk. One word from me to my husband, and you'll be managing a loading dock in a gutter somewhere. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lunch reservation."

She turned and swept away, her heels clicking an arrogant rhythm on the concrete, leaving Leo standing in a cloud of her perfume and his own impotent rage. He was shaking, not with fear, but with a fury so pure it felt like a physical blow. It wasn't just the insult. It was the galling, absolute certainty of her power. She wasn’t just breaking a rule; she was celebrating her immunity from it.

"Problem, Leo?"

The voice was a welcome anchor in his sea of anger. He turned to see Dr. Elena Vance approaching, her brown hair pulled back in its usual practical ponytail. In her simple blue scrubs, she was the antithesis of Isabella. Where Isabella was all artifice and contempt, Dr. Vance radiated a grounded, compassionate intelligence. She was one of the few doctors who made a point of knowing the names of the warehouse crew, who understood that her life-saving work began right here on this dock.

"You could say that," Leo grunted, nodding towards the defiant red car.

Dr. Vance's warm eyes hardened as she took in the scene. "Her again? I heard security talking this morning. I can't believe she came back." Her gaze shifted to Leo. "You look like you're about to explode."

"Close," he admitted. "She threatened my job. Basically told me I'm lucky the air I breathe is free."

Elena sighed, a weary sound that spoke volumes about the battles she fought with bureaucracy every day. "Ignore her. She's a menace. But right now, I have a bigger problem than her ego." She held up a tablet with a shipping manifest. "Did a truck from Med-Tech Dynamics check in yet?"

Leo shook his head. "Haven't seen it. What is it?"

"The new Cardio-Pulse monitor. It's an experimental ECMO bypass machine for pediatric critical care. There's a seven-year-old girl upstairs in the PICU, post-op from a heart transplant. Her body's rejecting it. This machine is her last chance." Dr. Vance’s voice was stripped of all emotion, leaving only a stark, clinical urgency. "It's the only one in the state, and it's on a dedicated transport. The thing is, Leo… it's massive. It's being delivered on a 35-ton articulated rig. The dispatch notes say they need the entire bay, especially this end, for the offload crane."

Leo’s blood ran cold. He looked from the crimson Lancia to Dr. Vance's face, where concern was now etched into lines of genuine fear. The oxygen delivery was a serious, systemic threat. This was different. This was immediate. This was one little girl in a bed upstairs, fighting for her life, while the one machine that could save her was about to be blocked by a rich woman's vanity.

"When does it get here?" Leo asked, his voice now dangerously quiet.

Dr. Vance looked at her watch. "An hour. Maybe less."

The casual arrogance, the personal insults, the threat to his job—it all evaporated, replaced by a singular, sharp focus. He looked at the car, then at the towering white cylinder of The Dragon, and then back at Elena's worried eyes. This was his kingdom, and two queens were now at war within its walls: the cold, indifferent queen of privilege, and the desperate queen of hearts in the ICU.

And he was the only soldier on the battlefield.