Chapter 7 - COLLATERAL DAMAGE
The asylum became a war zone in a matter of seconds. The long, decaying corridors, once meant to house the mentally fractured, now echoed with the terrifying, chaotic symphony of a mafia gang war. Gunfire flashed like strobe lights in the gloom, illuminating the cracked tiles and overturned gurneys as Adrian's enforcers pushed violently through the Falcone defenses.
I stayed plastered to the wall behind Adrian, clutching the Glock tightly to my chest, my breathing ragged and shallow. Every time a shot cracked nearby, I flinched, my ears ringing violently. This wasn't the movies. It was chaotic, loud, terrifying, and smelled overwhelmingly of sulfur and copper.
"Stairwell clear!" Rocco bellowed from the second-floor landing, dropping an empty magazine and slapping a fresh one into his rifle.
"Push to the third floor!" Adrian ordered, his voice cutting through the panic like a knife. "That’s where the old surgical suites are. That's where they’ll have the girl."
We moved as a tight, lethal unit up the stairs. As we reached the heavy double doors of the third floor, a spray of bullets tore through the frosted glass, raining deadly shards over our heads. We threw ourselves flat onto the landing.
"Suppressive fire!" Adrian barked.
Two of his men leaned around the corner, unleashing a torrent of automatic fire down the hallway, pinning the Falcone guards behind a barricade of overturned metal desks.
"We're bogged down!" Rocco yelled over the noise. "They have a heavy machine gun set up at the end of the hall!"
Adrian pulled a fragmentation grenade from his vest. His eyes were cold, calculating the geometry of the hallway. He pulled the pin, held the spoon for two terrifying seconds, and hurled it down the corridor.
"Fire in the hole!"
A massive, deafening explosion shook the very foundation of the building. A shockwave of heat and dust rolled over us, blowing the remaining glass out of the windows.
"Go! Go! Go!" Adrian roared, surging forward through the smoke.
We pushed into the hallway. The barricade was destroyed, the guards incapacitated. We moved past them, stepping over groaning men, our boots crunching on broken glass and spent shell casings.
Suddenly, a door to our left burst open.
Karen Mitchell stumbled out, her face pale, her neat bun completely unraveled. She was clutching a silver revolver, her eyes wide with frantic, cornered terror. She saw Adrian, then her eyes snapped to me. Pure hatred twisted her features.
"You ruined everything!" she screamed, raising the gun toward me.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I raised the Glock, my finger hovering over the trigger, but my hands were shaking too badly to aim.
Before Karen could fire, a single shot rang out from beside me.
Karen gasped, her eyes going wide. She dropped the revolver, clutching her chest as a dark stain blossomed rapidly across her white blouse. She fell to her knees, staring up at Adrian, who stood with his pistol leveled, smoke curling from the barrel.
"You... you're a dead man, Valente," Karen gurgled, blood spilling from her lips. "Dante... Dante has the girl. You can't save both... your empire... and her."
She collapsed forward, dead before her face hit the tiles.
I stared at her body, nausea rising violently in my throat. I had hated her. I had wanted her to pay for throwing Emma away like trash. But seeing a human life extinguished so violently right in front of me was a horrifying reality check.
Adrian grabbed my shoulder, his grip painfully tight, forcing my eyes away from the body and up to his face.
"Do not look at her," he commanded, his eyes burning into mine. "She made her choice. Focus on your sister. We have to keep moving."
We reached the end of the hallway, standing before a set of heavy, reinforced steel doors marked 'Surgical Suite 3'.
"It's locked from the inside," Rocco said, slamming his shoulder against the metal to no avail. "Heavy duty deadbolts."
"Stand back," Adrian growled. He leveled a shotgun he had pulled from his back and blew the hinges off the door in two deafening blasts. He kicked the heavy steel forward, and we poured into the room.
The surgical suite was a nightmare. A single, high-powered surgical lamp illuminated an old, rusted operating table in the center of the room. Hooked up to an ancient heart monitor, her skin as pale as snow, was Lucia. She was unconscious, an IV line dripping a clear fluid into her thin arm.
"Lucia!" I screamed, breaking formation and sprinting toward the table, completely abandoning cover.
"Elena, wait!" Adrian yelled, lunging to grab me.
But he was too late.
As I reached the table, a man stepped out from the shadows of the observation booth. It was Dr. Aris, his hands raised in terror, shaking violently.
"Don't shoot! Please don't shoot!" the doctor whimpered.
But my eyes weren't on him. From the dark corner behind the surgical equipment, Dante Moretti stepped into the light. He looked immaculate, completely unbothered by the war raging outside. In his right hand, he held a heavy magnum revolver.
And the barrel was pressed directly against Lucia's temple.
"Ah, the guest of honor has arrived," Dante smiled, a cold, reptilian grin that didn't reach his eyes. "And she brought the King with her. Drop the weapons, Adrian, or the little girl's brains decorate this beautiful antique equipment."
Adrian froze. Behind him, his enforcers raised their rifles, but no one had a clear shot without risking Lucia.
"Dante," Adrian said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, terrifying baritone. "This is between you and me. Let the civilian go."
"Nothing is between just you and me anymore, boss," Dante spat, the facade of politeness finally cracking, revealing the bitter, venomous hatred underneath. "You ruined this family. You made us soft. You tried to turn wolves into lapdogs! I am restoring the natural order. Now, drop the guns. Kick them over."
Dante cocked the hammer of the revolver. The sharp, metallic click echoed loudly over the steady, weak beep... beep... beep of Lucia's heart monitor.
"Drop them," Adrian ordered his men.
Rocco hesitated. "Boss—"
"I said drop them!" Adrian roared.
Reluctantly, the enforcers lowered their rifles and kicked them across the floor. Adrian tossed his pistol and shotgun away, raising his empty hands.
I stood frozen by the table, my hand still resting on Lucia's freezing cheek. Dante's gun was inches from my face. I could smell the gunpowder and the mint gum he was chewing.
"Now," Dante smiled, pulling a set of handcuffs from his belt and tossing them to Dr. Aris. "Cuff the King to the radiator, Doc. Then we take our leverage, walk out of here, and let the Falcone boys burn this building down with everyone else inside."
Dr. Aris picked up the cuffs with trembling hands, walking slowly toward Adrian.
May you like
I looked down at Lucia. Her chest was barely rising. She was out of time. She needed a sterile hospital, not a warzone. I looked at the heavy Glock still tucked tightly against my side, hidden by the oversized tactical jacket. Dante hadn't seen me holding a gun. He thought I was just a terrified, unarmed maid.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and prepared to throw my life away to save my sister's.
