Chapter 14 - The Final Heartbeat and the End of the Syndicate
The private recovery suite was suddenly a blur of flashing red emergency lights and frantic medical alarms.
“Code Blue! Code Blue in VIP Suite!” a nurse screamed, rushing into the room with a crash cart.
Ronald Sterling arched off his mattress, his eyes bulging with sheer, unadulterated terror as a searing pain tore through his chest.
“My… my chest… it burns… I can’t breathe…” Sterling gasped, clawing at the hospital sheets.
The ECG monitor beside the bed flatlined into a long, continuous, agonizing tone.
BEEEEEEEEEP.
“Charging paddles to two hundred joules! Clear!” the attending physician yelled, pressing the defibrillator pads against Sterling’s chest.
ZAP.
Sterling’s body jolted violently against the mattress.
The monitor remained a flat line.
“ Charge again! Three hundred joules! Clear!”
ZAP.
Nothing.
The heart Liam had given him—the heart engineered to reject every cell of the monster who had murdered his family—refused to beat another second for Ronald Sterling.
Doctor after doctor performed CPR, pressing frantically against his chest, but it was useless.
Fourteen minutes later, the attending physician lowered his head, dropped his paddles, and looked up at the clock on the wall.
“Time of death: 12:44 p.m.”
Ronald Sterling, the untouchable mastermind of the Boston syndicate, was dead.
At that exact second, across the city, federal raids coordinated by Michael Vance’s task force hit thirty different front companies, shell accounts, and warehouses belonging to the syndicate.
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Every ledger, every encrypted file, and every offshore bank routing number downloaded from the Pelican case’s micro-SD card was transmitted directly to federal servers.
The Sterling empire collapsed in a single afternoon.
