Chapter 2 - The Fire in TraumaThe third-floor corridor of Lakeview University Medical Center was quiet, smelling of floor polish, rubbing alcohol, and the freezing draft blowing through the broken ventilation shafts.
Suddenly, the overhead fluorescent lights flickered once. Twice.
CLACK.
The entire hospital went pitch black as the primary power grid went dead. Four seconds later, the low, mechanical hum of the emergency diesel generators kicked in, bathing the long white hallway in a dull, eerie crimson glow.
At the far end of the corridor, near the service elevators, the heavy double doors were kicked open with a thunderous BOOM.
Three men dressed in dark tactical jackets stepped into the red light, holding suppressed submachine guns. Leading them was Dominic Moretti—Victor’s forty-five-year-old nephew, a ruthless enforcer whose face was carved with deep, jagged scars from an old turf war in Cicero.
Dominic stopped twenty feet away, a cruel, yellow-toothed grin spreading across his face as he saw me standing in the center of the hallway, my sleeves rolled past my forearms, a white bandage taped over my elbow puncture mark.
"Luca Mancini," Dominic sneered, his voice echoing off the tile walls. "Look at you. The great King of Chicago, standing in a hallway bleeding out for a bastard girl you didn't even know existed."
I didn't raise my weapon immediately. I stood square in the center of the corridor, shielding the door to Bay 4 with my broad frame, my posture fluid, relaxed, and lethal.
"Dominic," I greeted smoothly, my voice flat and devoid of fear. "Your uncle sent you to do a man's job. That was his first mistake."
Dominic’s grin vanished into dark, arrogant rage. "My uncle spent seventeen years watching Sofia Bennett hide that girl in Evanston, Luca! He waited until tonight to pull the trigger so he could watch you bleed for her before we put a bullet in your head! Where is she? Is she dead yet?"
"She's a Mancini, Dominic," I whispered, my voice dropping into a register so cold it made the air in the corridor shudder. "And her father is still standing."
Before Dominic could press his trigger, I moved.
THWIP! THWIP! THWIP!
My suppressed SIG Sauer snapped three times in rapid succession.
The two enforcers standing beside Dominic collapsed backward onto the linoleum floor before their brains could register the movement, blood spraying across the clean white walls.
Dominic let out a strangled, terrified gasp as my third round shattered his right kneecap, dropping his broad frame flat onto his hands and knees in a pool of his own crimson.
I walked forward slowly, my heavy leather dress shoes stepping cleanly over the fallen submachine guns, stopping directly beside Dominic’s trembling head.
I reached down, pulled his tactical radio from his vest, and held it to my ear.
"Victor," I spoke smoothly into the transmitter.
A moment of static echoed over the speaker, followed by the deep, raspy voice of Victor Moretti sitting in his armored sedan down in the parking garage.
"Luca...?" Victor rasped out, a dark, victorious chuckle escaping his throat. "Did Dominic finish the job? Is the girl dead?"
"Dominic is weeping on the floor of the third-floor corridor, Victor," I replied cleanly, looking down into Dominic’s bloodshot, terrified eyes. "And I'm coming down to the parking garage to return his radio."
I raised my pistol and fired one final round into the floorboards beside Dominic's ear, shattering the radio into a hundred plastic shards.
"Marco," I commanded softly.
May you like
"Yes, Boss?" Marco stepped out from the stairwell shadows, holding two captured submachine guns.
"Secure Trauma Bay 4," I ordered. "Matteo’s strike team just pulled into the ambulance bay downstairs. Tell them to execute every Moretti soldier in the building."
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