Chapter 5 - The Hospital Room Showdown
The room was bathed in the soft, blue-tinted glow of medical monitors pacing a steady, rhythmic heartbeat. In the center of the room sat a motorized hospital bed, and propped up against the pillows was Claire.
She looked pale, exhausted, and terrifyingly fragile. Her dark hair was damp against her forehead, her hospital gown open slightly at the collar, and an IV drip was taped securely to the back of her right hand. Despite the physical toll, her eyes flashed with fierce, unyielding defiance as the door burst open.
Standing beside her bed, holding a small syringe filled with a clear liquid, was a man in a crisp white lab coat—except the stethoscope around his neck was dangling carelessly, and the latex gloves on his hands were already stained with a drop of dark fluid.
The fake doctor froze, his hand hovering inches from Claire’s IV port.
“Don't move,” Daniel snarled, leveling his pistol directly between the man's eyes.
For a split second, the room held its breath. The steady beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor was the only sound in the space. Claire looked from the armed man at her bedside to Daniel standing in the doorway, his suit dripping wet, his face a mask of primal fury.
“Daniel,” she whispered, her voice raspy, holding her hand protectively over her stomach.
“I’m here,” Daniel said, his eyes never leaving the fake doctor. “You’re safe.”
“You’re a little late, Mr. Carter,” the fake doctor said with a cold, mocking smirk, his fingers twitching toward the syringe. “And terribly predictable.”
“Drop the syringe,” Daniel commanded, stepping forward, the safety of his pistol clicking off with a crisp, lethal sound. “Or I will blow your skull across this sterile wall before you can finish your sentence.”
The man hesitated, weighing his options. He cast a sideways glance at the window, calculating the drop—though they were on the fourth floor.
“Do it,” Michael urged from the doorway, covering the corridor behind them.
With a curse, the fake doctor dropped the syringe to the linoleum floor, shattering the glass vial into a puddle of clear liquid. Before he could reach for the concealed shoulder holster beneath his lab coat, Daniel closed the distance and struck him across the face with the heavy steel barrel of his pistol.
The man collapsed instantly, unconscious, blood pooling on the clean hospital tile.
Daniel didn't look down at him. He holstered his weapon instantly, rushed to the side of the hospital bed, and dropped to his knees beside Claire, grabbing her free hand. Her skin was ice-cold.
“Are you hurt?” Daniel asked, his voice shaking—a vulnerability he had never shown another living soul. “Did he give you anything?”
“No,” Claire said, her chest heaving as she pulled her hand away from his grip, her eyes sharp and guarded. “You stopped him just in time. But what took you so long, Daniel? Why did you have to come here playing the hero? If you hadn't tracked me down, Vance’s men wouldn't have found this room so fast.”
Daniel stared at her, stunned. “What? Claire, I came to save you. Vance had an enforcer unit tracking you because of the audit you left in the nursery—”
“You think Vance is the only enemy on that board?” Claire interrupted, her voice cutting through his panic like a scalpel. She lifted her chin toward the bedside table, where a single manila folder lay half-open. “Look at the last page of the file, Daniel. The one you didn't have time to read.”
Daniel frowned, reaching out with trembling fingers to open the folder. He pulled out a single sheet of corporate registry paperwork—a document bearing the official seal of Carter Holdings’ primary holding account.
His eyes scanned the names, the signatures, the capital flows.
And the breath completely vanished from his lungs.
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The mastermind behind the multi-million-dollar siphoning operation wasn't Viktor Vance. Vance was just a front—a convenient distraction.
The primary beneficiary, holding fifty-one percent of the controlling shares in the shadow corporation that was about to bankrupt Carter Holdings, was Michael Reed.
