Chapter 9 - The Poisoned Chalice
The revelation hung in the air of room 114 like a cloud of suffocating poison gas.
Olivia let go of Dr. Thorne’s sleeve, stepping back until her spine hit the doorframe.
She looked across the room at Ryan DeMarco.
The cold, unflinching mafia boss who had ruled this city with detached calculation looked as though he had just been shot through the chest.
His dark eyes were wide, unblinking, and filled with a shattering realization that dismantled twenty-nine years of his life.
His stepmother.
The elegant, soft-spoken woman who had bandaged his childhood scrapes and played Chopin on the grand piano while his father waged street wars.
She was the venomous spider at the center of the Bloodline List.
“She sat at our breakfast table every morning,” Ryan muttered to himself, his voice sounding hollow and detached.
“She served tea to Daniel when he came to our house to discuss my education.”
“She smiled at him while she was planning how to put a paralytic in his coffee.”
Dr. Thorne reached into the pocket of his cardigan, pulling out a small, scratched plastic memory card and handing it toward them.
“I kept the security footage from the diner’s exterior camera across the street,” Thorne whispered, his breathing growing shallow.
“I knew that if Marcus ever decided to clean up loose ends, this tiny piece of silicon was the only life insurance policy I had left.”
“Take it… and get out of this city before Helena realizes you’ve spoken to me.”
Ryan took the memory card, closing his fist around it until the edges bit into his palm.
“We’re leaving,” Ryan commanded, his voice suddenly dropping into a lethal, robotic frequency.
He grabbed Olivia’s arm, pulling her out of the room and back into the sterile linoleum corridor.
Before they could reach the double doors of the rear loading bay, the sharp, concussive crack of rifle fire shattered the silence of the morning.
The heavy glass panes of the corridor windows exploded inward in a glittering shower of razor-sharp shards.
Ryan tackled Olivia to the floor, rolling them both behind a concrete structural pillar as a storm of automatic fire tore through the hallway.
Plaster dust, shredded acoustic tiles, and splinters of wood filled the air like a localized blizzard.
Through the shattered window frames, Olivia saw two black armored SUVs parked across the clinic’s gravel courtyard.
Men in tactical body armor and ballistic helmets were advancing in an overlapping suppressive fire formation.
On the doors of the lead SUV was the discreet gold crest of the DeMarco private security auxiliary.
Helena’s personal guard had found them.
“Marcus tracked Thorne’s medical monitor!” Ryan deduced through gritted teeth, spitting plaster dust from his lips.
“They knew Thorne was a liability the moment we broke out of the manor cellars!”
Ryan drew his suppressed Glock, leaning around the concrete pillar and squeezing off three deliberate, disciplined shots.
A point-man in the courtyard collapsed backward into the gravel, his rifle discharging harmlessly into the pines.
“Can we reach the car?” Olivia shouted over the deafening din of automatic rifles chewing through the hallway.
“The car is boxed in!” Ryan shouted back, racking his slide as an empty brass casing hit the linoleum floor with a sharp ping.
“We take the fire escape toward the ravine!”
He reached out, grabbing Olivia’s hand, his fingers lacing through hers with unyielding strength.
“Run when I fire!” Ryan ordered, his dark eyes locking onto hers with absolute intensity.
He leaned around the corner, firing four rapid rounds to force the remaining two shooters behind an armored engine block.
“Now!”
Olivia surged forward, sprinting through the storm of broken glass and falling ceiling tiles toward the emergency exit at the end of the hall.
Bullets whipped through the air beside her ears, buzzing like angry hornets.
Ryan trailed right behind her, acting as a human shield against the rear shooters as they burst through the red emergency door into the cold morning air.
Outside, the gravel embankment sloped steeply downward into a densely wooded ravine choked with boulders and rushing creek water.
Olivia didn't hesitate; she threw herself down the muddy incline, sliding on her heels as branches whipped across her face and arms.
Ryan tumbled down right behind her, catching her as they reached the rocky bank of the swollen creek below.
Behind them, tactical shouts and barking command dogs echoed from the ridge above.
“Move downstream!” Ryan commanded, pulling her through the freezing, knee-deep current.
The icy water soaked through their boots, numbing Olivia’s feet within seconds, but the adrenaline pumping through her veins blocked out the pain.
They scrambled along the winding creek bed for nearly a mile until the steep ravine walls sheltered them from visual observation.
Eventually, the creek passed beneath an ancient arched stone railway trestle spanning the industrial gorge.
Ryan pulled Olivia up into the shadows beneath the stone bridge, collapsing against the damp masonry with his chest heaving.
Olivia sank down onto a flat boulder, clutching her bleeding knees, her breath coming in ragged, ragged sobs.
They were alive.
Against all impossible odds, they had survived another execution squad sent by the DeMarco dynasty.
Olivia looked up at Ryan through her tangled, wet hair.
He was leaning against the stone arch, his eyes fixed on the tiny plastic memory card resting in his palm.
“It was Helena,” Olivia whispered, the reality of it setting like concrete in her mind.
“Your stepmother killed my father.”
“And she’s going to kill us too if we don't bring that ledger into the daylight.”
Ryan slowly closed his fingers over the memory card, his expression turning colder and darker than the winter sky above them.
“Helena thinks she can control this city from her garden patio,” Ryan spoke, his voice dripping with venomous, lethal certainty.
“She thinks because she poisoned Daniel Reed in secret, she is untouchable.”
“She has no idea what she has awakened.”
He looked down at Olivia, stepping toward her and extending a hand to help her up from the stone.
“Daniel Reed didn't leave his final encryption key with Dr. Thorne, Olivia,” Ryan said softly.
“And he didn't leave it with Samuel Vance.”
Olivia looked up into his eyes, her heart skipping a beat as a fragmented childhood memory flashed before her eyes.
“The music box,” she whispered, her voice barely carrying over the rushing creek water.
Ryan tilted his head slightly.
“What music box?”
“On my tenth birthday, my father gave me an antique Swiss brass music box,” Olivia revealed, her eyes wide with mounting excitement.
“He told me that if anything ever happened to him, I was never to sell it, no matter how hungry I got.”
“He told me the real melody was hidden beneath the brass cylinder.”
“Where is it now, Olivia?” Ryan asked, his grip on her hand tightening with urgent hope.
Olivia swallowed hard, feeling the weight of the eight-year-old secret settling onto her shoulders.
May you like
“It’s hidden beneath the loose floorboard under my childhood bed,” she answered.
“In the old house on Maple Street where I grew up.”
