Chapter 5 - The Crossfire and the Unbreakable Resolution
The sound of gunfire inside the sterile white corridor of St. Jude’s was like a match dropped into a pool of gasoline.
Althaus jumped so violently that his scalpel slipped, grazing a layer of fatty tissue with a sickening squelch.
“Damn it!” the surgeon hissed, his face turning the color of curdled milk.
“They’re shooting right outside! We’re going to die in here! We’re all going to be executed!”
“Shut up and keep stitching, Althaus,” Clara snapped, her voice cutting through the panic like a diamond cutter.
“Unless you want to bleed out on the floor next to him, keep your eyes on the field.”
Dominic didn’t flinch at the gunfire.
He calmly reached inside his ruined shirt, pulled out a heavy, black Beretta with a custom-milled grip, and checked the magazine with a smooth, practiced click of his thumb before sliding the slide back into battery.
He didn’t rush toward the door.
He simply positioned himself at an angle beside the entrance, his back against the wall, where he could cover the glass window without exposing his torso to incoming rounds from the hallway.
“Vance has the door,” Dominic said, his voice steady as a rock.
“If anyone comes through that glass who isn't wearing my colors, put them down,” Althaus whimpered, his hands shaking so badly he could barely tie the knot on the suture.
“I can’t do this! The tension is too high! I’m a vascular surgeon, not a combat medic!”
“You’re whatever I say you are for the next ten minutes,” Dominic said without looking at him.
“Finish the anastomosis, or I’ll help you practice surgery without a license.”
A heavy thud shook the double doors as someone—or something—crashed against the exterior surface.
A streak of dark crimson smeared across the frosted glass, leaving a long, wet smear that slowly slid downward.
Then came a voice from the hallway.
It wasn't Vance.
It was rough, mocking, and thick with malice.
“Hey, Gallo!” the voice shouted through the wood and glass.
“We know the kid is in there! Toss the ledger out the door and we might let you walk out of this charity ward with your skin attached!”
Dominic didn’t raise his voice.
He didn’t shout back.
He simply pressed his back harder against the wall, his dark eyes fixed on the center of the door where the frosted glass distorted the silhouette of a man standing just outside.
“They want the ledger,” Dominic muttered to himself.
“What ledger?” Clara asked, her fingers working deep inside Toby’s wound to clear a clot from the suture line.
“The record of every bribe, every payoff, and every shipping container that came through the harbor this month,” Dominic said, his gaze never leaving the door.
“The Rinaldis think if they burn it, they own the docks. They don’t understand that I memorized every page before I burned the originals myself.”
“You’re risking your brother’s life for a book?” Clara asked, her tone sharpening with disbelief.
“I’m not risking his life for a book,” Dominic replied, his voice dropping into a register so cold it felt like winter wind blowing off the river.
“I’m risking it to prove a point. In my world, if you let them take an inch, they take the table. And if they take the table, everyone you ever cared about ends up in a bag on the floor.”
“That’s a miserable way to live,” Clara said softly, her hands moving with incredible speed as she helped Althaus finish the final layer of the intestinal repair.
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“It’s the only way that works,” Dominic said.
Outside, the silhouette against the glass shifted.
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