Chapter 3 - THE TRAITOR IN THE CORRIDOR
The red digital numbers on the device in Frank DeLuca’s hand blinked with a merciless, rhythmic intensity.
03:45… 03:44… 03:43…
The hum of the ICU equipment suddenly felt entirely insignificant against the deafening roar of my own pulse. Frank DeLuca—the man who had taught me how to shoot, who had driven me to my first day of high school, who had stood like a stone wall beside our family for thirty years—was pointing a gun at us.
“Frank,” Vincent yelled, stepping instinctively in front of me, his hands raised. “Are you out of your mind? Put the bomb down!”
“I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, kid,” Frank chuckled, his eyes cold and devoid of any warmth. He shifted his gaze to Michael, sneering. “And you. I told your brother twenty years ago to make sure your body was never found. Should’ve finished the job myself instead of letting Eleanor hide you in the country.”
Michael didn't flinch. He slowly stepped in front of Dad’s bed, his shoulders squaring off against the armed head of security.
“You always were a loyal dog, Frank,” Michael said, his voice laced with absolute contempt. “Too bad you were barking at the wrong master.”
“My master pays in billions, Michael. The Syndicate doesn't lose wars, and it doesn't leave loose ends,” Frank barked, raising the submachine gun slightly, aiming it squarely at Michael’s chest. “Anthony thought he could play both sides—build his own little Chicago empire while quietly feeding us intelligence. But when his wife found out the truth about the inner circle… she had to be eliminated.”
My breath caught in my throat.
I looked down at Dad. He was thrashing weakly against the bedsheets, his mouth opening and closing in silent agony, trying to scream, trying to stop Frank from speaking.
“Mom,” I choked out, the word tearing through my lips. “Mom found out?”
“Your mother was too smart for her own good, Sophia,” Frank sneered, keeping his eyes on us while the timer on the bomb ticked downward. 02:50… 02:49… “She was going to take you kids and run to the feds. She thought Anthony would protect her. She didn't realize Anthony was just a lieutenant taking orders from the board.”
The room seemed to tilt.
The father I had worshipped, the feared Mafia boss who ruled half the Midwest with an iron fist, was not the apex predator I thought he was. He was a pawn. A middle-man for a shadow organization so vast it made the Moretti family look like a street gang.
“Dad?” I turned to the hospital bed, tears blinding my vision, looking down at the broken man beneath the sheets. “Is that true? You weren't the boss? You let them kill Mom?”
Dad couldn't speak, but his eyes answered for him. A fresh stream of tears spilled over his temples, soaking into the pillow. He closed his eyes in utter, consuming shame.
“Enough talking,” Frank spat, thumbing the safety off his weapon. “The hospital is rigged to blow in two minutes. The board wants the entire Moretti bloodline wiped out tonight so they can absorb the assets cleanly. Say goodbye, kids.”
Answer One: Frank DeLuca was the traitor working for the higher syndicate that had secretly controlled our family all along.
Open Two: How were we going to survive a bomb with a two-minute timer when all the exits were blocked by Frank’s armed guards?
Vincent moved with terrifying speed.
He didn't lunge at Frank. Instead, he slammed his fist directly into the heavy glass fire-alarm box mounted on the wall beside the ICU door.
CRASH!
The sharp, ear-piercing wail of the hospital fire alarm instantly filled the hallway, flashing strobes of blinding red light across the white walls.
“GET DOWN!” Vincent roared, tackling me to the floor behind the heavy steel base of Dad’s bed just as Frank opened fire.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!
Silenced bullets chewed through the drywall above us, raining plaster and wood splinters down onto our backs.
Michael didn't drop. With surprising agility for a man who had lived in the shadows for two decades, he kicked the heavy metal rolling tray directly into Frank’s shins. Frank stumbled backward, swearing, his finger slipping off the trigger.
“The window!” Michael shouted, grabbing the IV pole and hurling it through the reinforced glass window of the third-floor ICU room.
The glass shattered inward in a spiderweb pattern, letting in a howling rush of cold Chicago wind.
01:15… 01:14… 01:13…
“We can’t jump!” I screamed, looking down at the three-story drop into the asphalt ambulance bay below. “Dad can’t move!”
“We don’t have a choice!” Vincent yelled, scrambling to his feet. He grabbed one side of Dad’s hospital bed. “Michael, help me with the wheels! Sophia, grab the medical bags!”
Frank recovered his balance, shouting orders to his guards in the hallway. “Breach the door! Don't let them near the window!”
Heavy boots slammed against the ICU door as Frank’s men tried to force the jammed lock open from the outside.
Michael and Vincent grabbed the steel frame of Dad’s bed, heaving it forward with all their might. The brakes squealed against the linoleum floor.
“On three!” Michael yelled over the screeching fire alarm. “One! Two! THREE!”
They shoved the entire bed forward, crashing it straight through the remaining shards of the reinforced glass window into the freezing night air.
Reversal: We weren't jumping out the window to escape; we were riding the hospital bed down using the exterior maintenance lift cables.
As the bed cleared the window ledge, Michael hooked a heavy industrial carabiner—which he had pulled from his coat pocket—onto the thick steel cable of the window-washing rig running vertically down the side of the hospital.
The cable caught the frame of the bed with a violent jolt, slowing our terrifying descent just enough to keep us from crashing into the pavement below.
Bullets pinged off the metal frame of the bed as Frank appeared at the shattered window above us, firing down blindly into the dark.
“Hold on!” Vincent screamed, wrapping one arm around my waist while holding tight to Dad’s pillow with the other to keep him from suffocating in the wind.
We slid down the side of the hospital at breakneck speed, the cold wind tearing at my clothes, the red lights of the building flashing above us.
BOOM.
The ICU room exploded behind us, a massive fireball blowing the entire third-floor wall outward into the night sky, raining concrete and glass down around our descending bed.
We hit the asphalt of the ambulance bay with a bone-jarring crash, the bed wheels shattering instantly under the impact.
Before the dust had even settled, Michael was unbuckling the medical gear, pulling Dad’s gurney-mattress free.
“Move! Move! Move!” Michael yelled, hauling the mattress with Dad on it while Vincent and I scrambled to our feet, coughing on the thick smoke and dust.
A black armored SUV came screeching around the corner of the hospital garage.
I froze, thinking Frank’s men had cut us off.
The passenger door flew open, and a familiar face stepped out into the strobing light of the fire alarms.
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It was an old man I hadn't seen in ten years. Our former family consigliere, Salvatore, who had supposedly retired to Sicily.
“Get in!” Salvatore roared over the sirens. “Before the whole damn city block is swarming with syndicate cleaners!”
