Chapter 5 - The Siege of Room 412
The black Escalade tore through the deserted, rain-slicked streets of the downtown district at eighty miles an hour, its heavy engine roaring like a caged beast.
Sadi sat in the back seat between two armed enforcers whose black suits and shoulder holsters smelled of gun oil and expensive cologne. She stared blankly out the rain-streaked window, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her entire body shaking with a feverish, uncontrollable terror.
In the front passenger seat sat Victor. He hadn't said a single word since they left the estate. He had simply pulled a sleek black overcoat on over his white shirt, checked the magazine of a heavy Sig Sauer pistol with a crisp, mechanical click, and stared ahead through the windshield like a general riding out to a slaughter.
They pulled into the ambulance bay of St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital twelve minutes later.
The tires screeched against the asphalt. Before the vehicle had even come to a full stop, the doors flew open.
“Stay in the car,” Victor ordered over his shoulder, his voice leaving zero room for argument.
“No!” Sadi protested, scrambling to open her door. “I have to see Sam! I have to make sure he’s—!”
Victor moved with terrifying speed. Before her foot hit the pavement, he reached across the seat, grabbed her by the upper arms, and lifted her out of the vehicle with one fluid motion, setting her firmly on her feet right beside him.
He didn't let go of her arm. His grip was an iron shackle—firm, unyielding, but careful enough not to crush her bruised skin.
“You’re coming with me,” Victor said, his slate-gray eyes locking onto hers. “Because you need to learn something tonight, Sadi. In this city, nobody touches what belongs to my house.”
“I don't belong to your house, I’m just a maid—!” she cried out.
“You bled on my floors for eight months and kept your mouth shut,” Victor cut her off sharply, pulling her along with him as he strode toward the automatic glass sliding doors of the emergency entrance. “That makes you mine.”
The hospital lobby was quiet, bathed in the sterile, fluorescent white light of 2:30 AM. A terrified night-shift receptionist looked up from her desk, her eyes widening in sheer horror as Victor Costello marched through the front doors flanked by four massive men in black suits.
She didn't reach for the phone. She didn't dare breathe.
They hit the elevators, rode up to the fourth floor in suffocating silence, and stepped out into the quiet corridors of the oncology wing.
Room 412 was located at the very end of the hall.
Through the narrow glass window of the ward door, Sadi saw him.
Sam was lying fast asleep in the narrow hospital bed, looking heartbreakingly small beneath the white blanket. A tangle of clear plastic tubing ran from an IV pole into his thin arm, and the steady green line of a heart monitor pulsed in a quiet, rhythmic cadence beside his head.
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And standing right beside the bed, leaning casually over the sleeping boy with a sickening, predatory grin, was Mick O’Shea.
Mick had his phone out, tapping at the screen, entirely unaware of the storm gathering behind him.
