Chapter 3 - The Ambush at St. Jude’s
(Word count: ~1500 words)
The sound of the medical alarm filled the room, a high-pitched, rhythmic scream that matched the pounding of the blood in my ears. Inside the glass bay, Dr. Harrison was fighting to keep my son from choking on his own tongue. Outside, three feet away behind reinforced glass, my husband stood with two armed men.
"Get out of here, Ryan," I said, my voice shaking despite my attempt to sound firm. "You touched him, you poisoned him—you aren't coming anywhere near my son."
Ryan didn't flinch. He adjusted the cuff of his shirt, looking at me with an eerie, clinical detachment. "Mariana, stop playing the dramatic victim. You're out of your depth. You took our child from a private event without my consent. That constitutes parental abduction. I have a court-ordered medical emergency custody directive signed an hour ago by Judge Miller."
Dad stepped between me and the glass, placing himself directly in front of Ryan’s line of sight. "Judge Miller is on Beatrice’s payroll, Ryan. That paper isn't worth the ink it’s printed on, and you know it."
"Arthur," Ryan said smoothly, addressing my father with a faint, condescending smile. "Always the old cop thinking he’s still on the street. You don't have jurisdiction here. You don't have power. What you have is an illegally obtained video file that won't survive a preliminary suppression hearing, and a daughter who looks mentally unstable for snatching a sick baby."
One of the armed guards stepped forward, reaching for the electronic keycard reader beside the isolation door.
"Try it," Dad said quietly.
His hand drifted inside his jacket. His pose was relaxed, but I knew that stance. It was the posture he took right before he neutralized a threat.
"Dad, no!" I whispered, grabbing his arm. "Not here. Leo is inside!"
"He’s right, Arthur," Ryan said, his eyes dropping to Dad’s hidden hand. "You shoot a guard in a private pediatric facility, and you spend the rest of your life in a state penitentiary while I take Leo to a private facility in Zurich. Is that what you want?"
Before Dad could respond, the medical monitors inside the room flatlined.
A single, continuous tone echoed through the glass wall.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—
My heart stopped. The world around me dissolved into gray noise. I turned away from Ryan and slammed both hands against the glass. "Leo! Dr. Harrison, look at him!"
Inside, Dr. Harrison was charging the pediatric defibrillator pads. "Clear!" he shouted, slapping the tiny pads onto Leo’s chest. The small body jolted off the bed.
"Clear again!"
"No, no, no, please God, take me instead, please," I sobbed, pressing my forehead against the cold glass, my tears smearing the surface.
Ryan looked at the flatline monitor, then checked his wristwatch. He didn't look horrified. He looked impatient.
"It seems," Ryan said into the intercom, his tone chillingly casual, "that the medical emergency has resolved itself. Stand down, guards. Let the doctors pronounce him."
That was the moment something inside me broke.
The soft, compliant wife who had spent five years deferring to the Vance family’s prestigious name, who had smiled politely through Beatrice’s backhanded insults, died right there on the cold linoleum floor of St. Jude’s hospital.
I turned around slowly. My breath was ragged, my hands were steadying, and my eyes locked onto Ryan’s.
"You monster," I said softly.
Ryan sighed, reaching into his pocket for a leather gloves pair. "It’s business, Mariana. The Delgado family was never meant to hold that kind of wealth. Your grandfather was a fool who sat on a billion-dollar fortune while living in a suburban bungalow. We are simply putting the capital where it belongs."
"He’s your son!" I screamed, lunging at the glass. "He has your eyes! He has your blood!"
"He has my bloodline," Ryan corrected coldly. "But he was a means to an end. Once the transfer completes at midnight, the trust dissolves into Aether Holdings. I lose a son, but I gain an empire. I can always have another child, Mariana. With someone from my own class."
Behind him, the elevator doors at the end of the corridor opened with a quiet chime.
Two hospital security officers stepped out, accompanied by three uniformed LAPD officers.
Ryan smiled, straightening his tie. "Ah. The real police are here. Arthur, drop your weapon before they shoot you in front of your daughter."
Dad didn't move. He didn't pull his gun. Instead, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small black remote control with a single red toggle switch.
"You’re right about one thing, Ryan," Dad said, his voice deadly calm. "I don't have police jurisdiction anymore. But I do have friends in private logistics."
Dad flipped the toggle switch.
Instantly, the overhead fluorescent lights blew out, plunging the entire basement corridor into absolute blackness.
Emergency sirens blared. The heavy steel fire doors at both ends of the hall slammed shut automatically, locking down the sector.
"What the hell?" Ryan’s voice echoed in the dark, losing its composure for the first time. "Guards! Get the doors!"
CRASH.
The sound of shattering safety glass echoed from inside the isolation bay. Emergency backup red lights flickered on, casting a blood-colored glow over the corridor.
Through the red haze, I saw Dr. Harrison unlocking the rear emergency service door inside the bay—a door that wasn't connected to the main hallway security system.
The flatline alarm was still blaring, but on the bed, the heart monitor wires had been disconnected and attached to a simulator module.
In Dr. Harrison’s arms was Leo—wrapped in a thick thermal blanket, his eyes open, his small chest moving rapidly as he breathed through a portable mechanical respirator. He was alive. The flatline had been a trick.
"Go!" Dr. Harrison yelled through the broken glass window, passing the bundle straight into my arms. "The oxygen tank in this wrap has twenty minutes! Get him to the dock!"
"Mariana!" Ryan yelled from across the glass partition, slamming his shoulder against the locked door. "Stop her!"
Dad stepped into the middle of the corridor, pulling a flashbang canister from his belt—a souvenir from his tactical squad days. He pulled the pin and dropped it right at the feet of Ryan’s guards.
"Cover your eyes!" Dad yelled to me.
I ducked behind the concrete pillar, holding Leo tightly against my chest, covering his ears with my jacket.
BANG!
A blinding flash of white light and a deafening shockwave exploded through the hallway. Screams and shouts dissolved into high-pitched ringing.
Dad grabbed my upper arm, his grip like iron. "Run, Mariana! Up the service ramp!"
We bolted down the narrow, concrete utility tunnel behind the isolation bay. Behind us, I could hear the muffled thud of boots pursuing us through the dark, accompanied by Ryan’s furious, screaming voice echoing off the concrete walls:
"Find them! Do not let that baby leave this building alive!"
We burst through the exterior loading dock doors into the heavy Los Angeles night air. Rain had started to fall, slicking the asphalt.
A large, unmarked silver delivery van was idling by the dumpster bay. The side door slid open instantly.
A woman with short gray hair and a sharp, military posture leaned out. It was Clara Delgado—my aunt, Dad’s younger sister, and a former federal transport specialist.
"Get in! Get in!" Clara shouted.
Dad shoved me into the back of the van, scrambling in right after me. Clara slammed the side door shut and stomped on the gas pedal just as two gunshots shattered the rear window glass, showering us with safety beads.
The van roared out of the alley, tires screeching against the wet pavement.
I collapsed on the floor mat, clutching Leo to my chest. His warm breath was light against my neck, but he was breathing. He was alive.
Dad wiped a mixture of rain and sweat from his forehead, looking out the cracked rear window. "They won't follow us directly now. They can't risk a public high-speed chase."
"Where are we going?" I asked, my body shaking violently from the adrenaline crash. "We can't go to your house. We can't go to my apartment. Ryan knows every property we own."
"We aren't going to any Delgado property," Dad said, pulling a laptop out of a secure storage box beneath the van seat. "We're going to the place where this all started."
He flipped the laptop open. On the screen was a real-time audio wave monitor displaying an active phone frequency.
"What is that?" I asked.
"While you were upstairs in the suite, I had Clara place an acoustic tap under Beatrice Vance’s vehicle," Dad said, adjusting his headset. "Listen."
He pressed play on the speaker.
Beatrice’s voice came through the high-grade speakers, crisp, sharp, and dripping with venom.
"Ryan, you incompetent idiot," Beatrice was saying on the recorded call. "How did you let a schoolteacher’s daughter outsmart you? The wire transfer initiates in two hours. If the child isn't registered in the hospital registry as deceased by 11:50 PM, the Swiss trustees automatically freeze the accounts for a secondary forensic review!"
"She had Arthur with her," Ryan’s voice replied, sounding panicked and breathless. "He set off a flashbang in the basement. They have the baby, Mother."
"Then activate Phase Two," Beatrice said coldly. "Call the precinct. Report that Mariana Vance suffers from severe postpartum psychosis and has fled with a critically ill child. Tell the press she’s armed and dangerous. If the police find her first... make sure they treat her as an active threat."
Beatrice paused, her breath quiet on the line.
"And Ryan?"
"Yeah?"
"If the baby dies in the crossfire during her arrest... the trust still pays out. Do you understand me?"
I sat in the dark van, listening to my mother-in-law order the execution of my child and myself under the color of law.
May you like
Dad closed the laptop. His face was shadowed, his jaw set like stone.
"They just declared war," Dad said quietly. "Now we take away their money."
