Chapter 9 - Heartbeat of a Fighter
Inside the NICU, Elena’s diagnostic instincts screamed that something was wrong.
The corridor outside had gone too quiet.
"Clara," Elena said, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper. "Take Maya and get behind the nurse's station. Now."
Clara looked up, terror instantly flooding her eyes. "Elena? What is it?"
"Do as I say. Quickly."
Clara slid out of her wheelchair, ignoring the blinding pain in her fractured ribs, and pulled Maya down into the narrow, recessed alcove beneath the oak reception desk.
The outer nursery door swung open.
Victor Vance walked in.
He didn't rush. He didn't look like a wild animal. He moved with the chilling, calculated calm of a professional assassin who had done this a dozen times before.
Elena stood squarely in the center of the aisle, blocking the path between Victor and the two incubators holding Leo and Grace.
"You're not maintenance," Elena said, her voice steady, though her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. "Get out of here before I trigger the hospital lockdown."
Victor pulled down his surgical mask, revealing a thin, cruel mouth and a jagged scar that ran from his ear to his jawline.
"The emergency alarm system was bypassed three minutes ago in the basement junction box, Doctor," Victor said calmly, twirling the potassium syringe between his fingers like a pen. "No one is coming. Move aside, and you walk out of here alive. My employer only requires that the trust beneficiaries... fail to meet their medical survival criteria."
"You sick bastard," Elena hissed, taking a defensive stance. "They are two weeks old!"
"They are thirty million dollars," Victor replied smoothly, taking a sudden, explosive step forward.
He swung a brutal, backhanded blow that caught Elena across the jaw.
The force of the strike threw the doctor sideways against the supply cart, sending metal trays, scissors, and glass vials crashing to the floor with a deafening clatter. Elena hit the tiles hard, her vision swimming in stars, blood pooling in her mouth.
Victor turned toward the incubators, raising the syringe to pierce the IV line feeding little Leo.
"NO!"
A feral, deafening scream echoed through the nursery.
Clara Bennett launched herself from beneath the desk like a wounded mountain lion. She didn't have a weapon. She weighed barely ninety pounds. But she carried four years of unadulterated motherly rage.
She slammed into Victor’s back, her fingernails tearing into his eyes, her teeth sinking deep into the meat of his shoulder.
"Bitch!" Victor roared in pain, staggering sideways. He dropped the syringe, which shattered on the floorboards, the clear poison spreading harmlessly across the tiles.
Victor spun around, slamming Clara against the wall with his massive forearm. Clara gasped as the air was knocked completely out of her lungs, her fractured ribs grinding together in agony.
Victor gripped her throat with his left hand, lifting her off her feet, his silver wolf ring pressing hard against her windpipe.
"You should have died in that trailer, Clara," Victor snarled, his thumb digging into her carotid artery. "Julian would have given you a lovely funeral."
Suddenly, a tiny figure darted out from the shadows.
Maya, holding a heavy glass paperweight she had grabbed from the desk, swung it with both hands with everything she had.
*CRACK.*
The solid glass struck Victor squarely on the kneecap.
Victor howled in agony, his leg buckling instantly under his massive weight. His grip on Clara broke, and she tumbled to the floor, gasping for air.
Enraged, Victor swung his arm out toward the seven-year-old child. "You little parasite—"
*BANG!*
The nursery window shattered into a spiderweb of cracks.
The door kicked open with the force of an artillery shell.
Sheriff Marcus Hayes stepped through the breach, his service weapon drawn and leveled directly between Victor’s eyes.
"DON'T MOVE A MUSCLE!" Marcus roared, his voice shaking the glass partitions. "HANDS ON YOUR HEAD! DOWN ON THE FLOOR NOW OR I WILL PUT TWO IN YOUR CHEST!"
Victor froze, kneeling on his shattered kneecap, blood dripping from his temple where Maya had struck him. He looked at Marcus’s eyes and saw no hesitation—only an executioner's resolve.
Slowly, deliberately, Victor raised his bloody hands into the air.
Marcus stepped forward, drove his boot into Victor’s shoulder, pinning him flat against the floor, and slammed steel handcuffs around his wrists until the metal clicked into bone.
Marcus leaned down, his mouth inches from the mercenary's ear.
May you like
"The state crime lab just called," Marcus whispered with cold, venomous satisfaction. "Your thumbprint was stamped in dried blood on the inside latch of that brass padlock in Devil’s Creek. You're done, Vance. Attempted capital murder of four people. You're never going to see the sun again."
***
