Chapter 6 - Shadows on the Fifth Floor
The private elevator of St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital chimed softly as it reached the fifth floor, the stainless-steel doors parting to reveal a heavy shroud of silence.
I stepped out into the hallway, my tactical vest still concealed beneath my black trench coat, my phone pressed tightly to my ear.
"Status, Marcus?" I asked in a low whisper.
"Perimeter is locked down tight, Boss," Marcus’s voice crackled through the encrypted earpiece. "We’ve got four snipers on adjacent rooftops, six operatives patrolling the ground floor, and two men stationed directly outside Trauma Room 4. Nobody has approached the ward."
"Good. Keep your eyes open. Vincent knows we're onto him; a cornered rat is at its most dangerous."
I hung up and walked down the muted corridor. The hospital at 2:00 AM was a ghost town, bathed in the pale, sickly glow of emergency overhead lights. As I approached Trauma Room 4, a cold knot suddenly tightened in my stomach.
The two men I had left guarding the door weren't standing at attention.
They were slumped against the opposite wall, motionless, their heads tilted at unnatural angles.
"Trap!"
I drew my Sig Sauer instantly, dropping into a tactical crouch and sprinting the final ten yards down the linoleum floor. I checked both guards—unconscious, heavy sedatives injected directly into their carotid arteries. They were breathing, but completely out of commission.
The door to Trauma Room 4 was cracked open an inch.
I kicked it wide open, sweeping the barrel of my gun across the darkened room in a fluid, practiced arc.
The bed was empty.
The white sheets were tangled and discarded. The IV drip bag was swinging gently from its metal pole, leaking a slow drip of saline onto the floor. Clara and Leo were gone.
On the small bedside table, resting right where the heart monitor had been clicking away just hours ago, was a single folded piece of paper bearing a familiar wax seal—the serpent crest of the Morosco family.
I snatched the note, unfolded it, and read the scrawled handwriting under the dim light of my phone screen:
‘You thought a little warning at the club would scare us off, Ethan? While you were busy playing hero, our extraction team collected your prize. If you ever want to see the mother and your precious boy alive again, come alone to Pier 42 by sunrise. Bring the entire Manhattan ledger... or we feed them to the fishes.’
A cold fury unlike anything I had ever felt surged through my veins, threatening to consume every rational thought in my head. They had taken Clara. They had taken my son.
My encrypted phone buzzed violently in my hand.
It was an incoming video call from an unknown, encrypted satellite relay.
With trembling fingers, I swiped to accept.
May you like
The screen flickered to life, illuminating a dark, damp warehouse interior smelling of salt and diesel. On the screen, little Leo was huddled against Clara in a corner of a concrete room, his face stained with tears, still clutching the battered red toy truck with the mismatched black wheel. Standing behind them, holding a heavy hunting knife dangerously close to Clara’s throat, was one of Vincent Morosco’s top enforcers, smiling menacingly directly into the camera lens.
"Tick-tock, Ethan," a distorted voice sneered through the speaker. "Sunrise is in two hours. Don't be late."
