Chapter 13 - The Trial by Fire and the Nurse Who Held the Scalpel
The entire warehouse turned into a stadium of blinding red light.
Garrett whipped around, his eyes going wide with shock as the magnesium flare
sputtered and hissed across the wet concrete.
"Mila!" Garrett yelled, a manic, triumphant grin spreading across his face. He
raised his weapon, leveling it directly at my chest. "You came! Where is my
brother? Where is the king?"
On the elevated catwalk, Lorenzo Thorne stepped forward, his eyes scanning the
shadows behind me. "Take her! Find the boy!"
I didn't run. I stood my ground under the glare of the halogen lights, ten yards
from where Patrice was tied to the post.
"Patrice!" I called out.
"Mila, run!" Patrice sobbed through her gag, struggling against the heavy ropes.
"It's a trap!"
"Shut up!" Garrett snarled, stepping toward me, his boots splashing through
puddles of river water on the floor. "Where is Kieran, Mila? Tell me, and maybe
I let you live to raise your kid in an institution!"
"Kieran is dead," I lied, keeping my voice steady, projecting it so every
mercenary in the room could hear. "He bled out in the rail yard an hour ago. His
lung collapsed. I watched him die, Garrett."
A look of pure, intoxicating triumph washed over Garrett’s face. He lowered his
gun slightly, throwing his head back with a sharp, victorious laugh.
"I did it," Garrett whispered, looking up at Thorne on the catwalk. "He's dead!
The city is ours!"
"You didn't do anything, Garrett," I said, taking a slow, deliberate step toward
him. "You're a coward who puts poison in children's juice boxes because you're
too weak to fight your own brother face to face."
Garrett’s laugh vanished instantly. His expression twisted into pure, rabid
fury.
"You think you're better than me, nurse?" he hissed, closing the distance
between us until he was two feet away, pressing the cold barrel of his
semi-automatic pistol directly against the center of my forehead. "You're
nothing! A charity case my brother picked up in an ER! And now you die like the
rest of his mistakes!"
"I might be a nurse, Garrett," I whispered, looking straight into his bloodshot
eyes without blinking.
"And what does that mean?" he sneered.
"It means I know exactly where the femoral artery is."
With blinding, practiced speed, my right hand whipped out of my scrub pocket.
The three-inch stainless steel surgical scalpel glinted under the red glare of
the flare.
I drove the blade deep into the inner crease of Garrett’s right thigh, twisting
the handle with a sharp, upward jerk that severed the major vessel instantly.
Garrett let out an ungodly, high-pitched scream of agony as a fountain of dark
arterial blood sprayed across the concrete floor. His gun dropped from his hand
as his leg gave out completely, sending him crashing into the puddle of his own
making, clutching his thigh in frantic, futile terror.
"Now, Kieran!" I screamed, dropping flat to the floor.
From the high shadows of the ceiling rafters, justice descended.
Kieran Voss dropped from the crane gantry directly onto the elevated catwalk
behind Lorenzo Thorne.
The impact was thunderous. Kieran didn't fire a weapon. He grabbed Thorne by the
throat with his massive right hand and hurled the syndicate boss over the iron
railing.
Thorne plummeted forty feet, crashing through the windshield of his own armored
SUV below with a deafening shatter of safety glass and crushing steel.
Gunfire erupted across the warehouse rafters.
Lev and his eight men burst through the riverside maintenance doors, submachine
guns roaring in synchronized, devastating bursts, eliminating Thorne’s remaining
snipers within fifteen seconds of disciplined, military violence.
The warehouse fell dead silent, broken only by the crackle of the dying flare
and the frantic, choking gasps of Garrett Voss bleeding out on the concrete.
Kieran descended the iron stairs, his steps slow, deliberate, and unstoppable.
He walked past Thorne’s broken body, past the smoking weapons of his men, and
stopped directly in front of his dying brother.
Garrett looked up at Kieran, his face turning pale and gray as his life pumped
out onto the floor. "Kieran... please... you're my brother... don't let me
die..."
Kieran stared down at him. The rage in his eyes was gone, replaced by a cold,
infinite sorrow that went back twenty years into their shared past.
"You poisoned a child, Garrett," Kieran said, his voice dropping into a low,
final whisper. "You stopped being my brother the moment you touched Noah."
May you like
Kieran turned to me. He extended his hand, pulling me up from the concrete floor
into his arms, wrapping his coat around my shivering shoulders.
"Lev," Kieran said without looking back. "Call the city coroner. The Thorne
syndicate has ceased operations in Chicago."
