Chapter 11 - The Capture and the Ride to St. Jude Memorial
The bedroom air was thick with gray haze and stinging chemical vapor.
Coughing and blinking through the stinging smoke, I stepped out into the open, clutching the heavy black Pelican case in front of me like a shield.
Marcus and three of his enforcers were waiting.
Marcus lowered his submachine gun slightly, a dark, victorious grin spreading across his face as he looked at me.
“Well, well,” Marcus mocked, stepping forward and snatching the Pelican case from my hands.
“Turns out the smart little widow knows when she’s beaten.”
On the floor nearby, Thomas was slumped against the wall, his breathing shallow and labored, his hands bound with plastic zip-ties behind his back. He raised his head slightly, his eyes locking onto mine with a silent, pleading message: Hold on.
“Get her on her feet,” Marcus barked to the two enforcers.
“Sterling’s surgery started twenty minutes ago at St. Jude Memorial. The boss wants the Pelican case delivered to his private suite before he wakes up from the anesthesia—and he wants the girl and her brat permanently erased before the sun sets.”
Two heavy pairs of hands grabbed me by the arms, hoisting me up roughly and dragging me out of the safe house.
I didn't fight them.
Fighting now would accomplish nothing.
Every step I took, every breath of cold air I inhaled, was buying precious time for the clock to tick down.
They bundled me into the back of a black SUV parked outside the apartment building, throwing the Pelican case onto the floorboards between my feet.
Marcus climbed into the passenger seat, while the driver floored the accelerator, tearing through the snow-choked streets of Boston toward St. Jude Memorial Hospital.
As we sped past the icy Charles River, the digital dashboard clock flashed: 11:45 a.m.
Twelve minutes until Ronald Sterling’s heart transplant surgery was scheduled to conclude.
Forty-eight hours until the biological payload hidden inside Liam’s donated heart would trigger total, irreversible rejection.
The SUV pulled into the ambulance bay of St. Jude Memorial Hospital, bypassing the public entrance and heading straight down the private subterranean service ramp reserved for VIP patients and surgical transports.
The vehicle came to a screeching halt.
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The rear doors flew open, and harsh fluorescent light blinded me as Marcus dragged me out onto the sterile concrete floor of the hospital basement.
“Move!” Marcus growled, shoving me forward toward the private surgical elevator.
