Chapter 12 - The Line in the Linoleum and the Gathering Storm
Clara didn’t look up as Dominic paused at the threshold of the room.
Her fingers adjusted the flow valve on the saline bag, her face an unreadable mask of professional detachment masking a rising tide of silent fury.
“You’re going to walk right into a firing squad,” she said, her voice flat, devoid of any emotional pleading.
“Rinaldi isn’t coming to talk, Dominic. He’s coming to execute a coup.”
“Let him try,” Dominic replied, his voice ringing with the absolute, terrifying confidence of a man who had built an empire on blood and concrete.
“A man who fights in the streets is dangerous. A man who fights in a hospital is desperate. And desperate men make mistakes.”
“And what about the patients?” Clara finally turned her head, fixing her dark, exhausted eyes directly on his.
“What about the people in this building who are just trying to survive the night? If you start a war in these hallways, bullets don’t check identification badges before they tear through a wall.”
Dominic took two slow steps back toward her, stopping just an arm’s length away.
The scent of iron, gunpowder, and expensive cologne hung heavily between them in the sterile air of the isolation room.
“I won’t let them touch this ward,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling promise that carried the weight of an oath.
“I know every inch of this building. St. Jude’s was built fifty years ago as a fallout shelter for the old city council before it was turned into a charity ward. The walls in the west wing are reinforced concrete beneath the plaster. They can’t shoot through them.”
“And the lobby?” Clara challenged.
“The lobby has glass doors,” Dominic admitted without flinching.
“Which is why we aren’t going to fight them in the lobby.”
He reached out, his large, scarred hand gently wrapping around Clara’s wrist—not with the bone-crushing grip of a captor, but with a firm, grounding pressure that forced her to look at him.
“I need you to stay here,” Dominic said, his tone softening into something dangerously intimate.
“Lock this door from the inside. Do not open it for anyone—not for the police, not for the doctors, and not even for me unless I give the password.”
“What password?” Clara asked, her breath catching slightly in her throat.
“The name of the street in Baltimore where you burned your father’s dinner,” Dominic whispered.
Clara’s eyes widened fractionally.
She hadn’t told him the name of the street.
May you like
She had only mentioned the city, the basement, and the kitchen table.
Before she could ask how he knew, Dominic turned on his heel, drew his Beretta from his coat with a smooth, practiced snap of his wrist, and strode out of the room into the dim, flickering corridor of St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital.
