THE BLOOD TIES THAT BIND

The heavy wooden door shuddered violently as a battering ram struck it from the hallway.

Crack.

The hinges screamed.

“We can’t hold this room,” Vincent shouted over the blaring fire alarm. He grabbed Santiago by the arm, hauling him to his feet. “The en-suite bathroom. It shares a ventilation shaft with the laundry chute. If we can break the grate, we can drop to the basement.”

“I’m not leaving you here,” Sarah said, scrambling to her feet. Her nurse’s uniform was covered in plaster dust and Dr. Evans’s blood, but her eyes were fiercely determined.

“You’re coming with us,” Santiago commanded.

Another brutal strike hit the door. The wood splintered, revealing the dark, armored figures waiting in the hall.

Vincent kicked the bathroom door open and shoved Sarah and Santiago inside. He fired three more shots through the breaking main door, buying them the final seconds they needed, before locking himself in the bathroom with them.

The space was tiny, reeking of antiseptic.

Vincent immediately climbed onto the edge of the porcelain sink. He used the butt of his heavy pistol to smash the metal grate covering the large ventilation shaft near the ceiling.

“Go,” Vincent ordered Sarah, helping hoist her up.

She squeezed through the opening with practiced agility, disappearing into the dark, echoing shaft.

Santiago went next. Every muscle in his wounded chest tore in agony as he pulled his heavy frame up. He tasted fresh blood in the back of his throat. He threw himself into the shaft just as the main hospital room door finally gave way with a horrific crash.

Vincent scrambled up behind him, pulling the broken grate back into place just as men in heavy black tactical gear swarmed the bathroom.

They lay perfectly still in the narrow, dusty metal duct. The darkness was absolute. Below them, they could hear the mercenaries tearing the bathroom apart, shouting furious commands in Russian.

Not Italian. Russian.

Santiago exchanged a look with Vincent in the pitch black.

“They aren’t Leo’s men,” Vincent whispered, his breath hot against the metal. “Leo hated the Bratva. He fought a war against them.”

“Leo is working with them,” Santiago replied coldly. “Or they are using him.”

They crawled silently for twenty yards until the duct opened into a wider, vertical shaft. The laundry chute.

One by one, they slid down the smooth metal incline, dropping two floors down into the pitch-black, cavernous basement of the hospital. They landed in a massive pile of discarded hospital linens.

Santiago rolled off the pile, groaning as his boots hit the concrete floor.

He leaned against a concrete pillar, clutching his bleeding chest. The adrenaline was fading, leaving a cold, terrifying weakness in his limbs.

Sarah rushed to his side. Even in the dark, her hands moved with professional speed. She ripped a clean sheet from the pile and pressed it hard against his bleeding wound.

“You are tearing your stitches,” Sarah whispered urgently. “If you keep moving like this, you will bleed out before we ever find an exit.”

“Then fix it,” Santiago gritted his teeth.

“I don’t have supplies here!”

“Fix it, Sarah.”

She swallowed hard. She pulled a small roll of medical tape from her pocket and bound the tight, makeshift bandage around his torso. It wouldn't hold for long, but it would buy him an hour.

Vincent was pacing the dark basement, checking the heavy steel doors leading to the parking garage.

“Locked,” Vincent cursed, kicking the metal. “Electronic deadbolts. The emergency lockdown sealed the entire sub-level.”

Santiago leaned his head back against the cold concrete pillar. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the heavy silver pocket watch. He ran his thumb over the engraved lion.

Leo. The older brother who was supposed to inherit the empire. The brother whose reckless greed and violent temper had forced their father to pass the crown to Santiago instead. Leo had sworn revenge, but his car had exploded in a fiery crash six years ago. Santiago had buried an empty casket.

“Why does the hospital administrator have my dead brother’s watch?” Santiago asked the darkness.

Vincent walked back over. He pulled a small penlight from his jacket, shielding the beam with his hand so it only illuminated the silver watch.

“Open it again,” Vincent said softly.

Santiago pressed the latch. The watch popped open.

Vincent reached out. His thick, calloused fingers didn’t touch the clock face. They touched the inner lid. He slid his fingernail under a tiny, hidden groove in the silver.

With a soft click, a false backing popped loose.

A small, folded piece of paper fluttered into Santiago’s hand.

Santiago carefully unfolded it under the weak beam of the penlight.

It was a photograph. But it had been violently torn perfectly in half.

The image showed a woman sitting on a park bench. She was laughing, her face turned away from the camera. But she wasn't alone. She was holding a small child in her lap. The child’s face was missing—it was on the torn half of the picture.

But Santiago didn't need to see the child's face.

He recognized the woman. He recognized the emerald green coat she was wearing.

It was Vincent’s wife, Clara.

Vincent stared at the torn photograph of his wife. All the color drained from his face. The fierce, untouchable enforcer suddenly looked like a terrified child.

“That photo,” Vincent choked out, his voice cracking. “I took that photo of Clara and my son, Mateo, three days ago. I kept it in my wallet.”

Santiago looked at his best friend.

“Check your wallet, Vincent.”

Vincent frantically tore his wallet from his back pocket. He ripped it open.

The leather sleeve where he kept the picture of his family was completely empty.

Someone had pickpocketed the mafia’s deadliest enforcer without him ever knowing. They had torn the photo of his wife and five-year-old son in half, placed it inside a dead man’s watch, and handed it to a blackmailed doctor.

“They have my family,” Vincent whispered, dropping to his knees on the concrete floor. The gun slipped from his hand. “They took my wife. They took my little boy.”

Sarah covered her mouth, a tear slipping down her cheek.

Santiago looked down at his broken friend. He didn't offer empty comforts. He didn't tell him it would be okay.

Santiago reached down, picked up Vincent’s dropped gun, and shoved it hard against Vincent’s chest.

“Stand up,” Santiago commanded, his voice ringing with a cold, terrifying authority. “They want us to break. They want us to hide in this basement until we bleed to death.”

Vincent looked up, tears of pure rage pooling in his eyes.

“Who has my son, Santiago?”

“I don’t know,” Santiago said, pulling Vincent to his feet. “But we are going to find the other half of this photograph. And whoever is holding it... we are going to burn them alive.”

Before Vincent could reply, the heavy steel door to the parking garage suddenly clanked loudly.

The electronic deadbolt whirred. The green light flashed.

Someone from the outside had just overridden the lockdown.

The heavy door slowly swung open, spilling the bright, harsh glare of car headlights into the dark basement.