Chapter 2 - Shadows in the Hospital
Chicago General Hospital was quiet at 2:00 a.m., save for the hum of fluorescent lights and the rhythmic beep of heart monitors echoing down the third-floor intensive care unit. Outside room 304, two uniformed police officers sat on plastic chairs, nursing cold coffee, completely unaware of the wolves circling the hallway.
Gideon walked through the automatic sliding doors of the main lobby, dressed in a sharp dark suit, flanked by Marcus and two imposing enforcers. To the casual observer, he looked like a powerful tech mogul visiting a relative. To anyone who knew the streets, he was death walking.
"Floor three is clear on the east wing," Marcus whispered into his earpiece, checking his phone screen. "But Kozlov’s men just entered through the basement service bay. Three operators dressed as night sanitation staff."
"They're moving to eliminate the mother before she wakes up," Gideon noted coldly. "Take the stairwell. No gunfire unless suppressed. We don't cause panic."
In room 304, Clara Miller lay motionless under a thin white blanket. Wires connected her chest to a vitals monitor, and an oxygen mask covered her bruised face. She was a young woman, no older than twenty-nine, her pale face showing traces of the same quiet strength Gideon had seen in little Norah.
The door to room 304 swung open silently. A tall man in a blue janitorial uniform stepped inside, reaching into his pocket to draw a syringe filled with a clear, fatal dose of potassium chloride. He stepped toward the IV line.
Before his fingers could touch the tube, a hand like a steel vise clamped around his throat from behind.
Gideon shoved the assassin against the wall with terrifying force, cutting off his airway before the man could draw a breath to scream. Marcus stepped in from the shadows, wrenching the syringe away and driving a heavy tactical elbow into the hitman's ribs, folding him instantly to the floor.
"Who sent you?" Gideon growled, slamming the man's head lightly against the plaster wall. "Talk, or you leave this building in a body bag."
The assassin gasped for air, his eyes wide with recognition as he looked into the legendary face of Gideon Vale. "K-Kozlov..." he choked out. "The girl... she has the drive. The mother took the master ledger from the Senator’s safe... Kozlov needs the girl dead before she gives the toy to the police..."
Gideon’s jaw set. He didn't ask further questions. With a swift, practiced motion, Marcus rendered the hitman unconscious with a blow to the jaw, binding his hands with heavy zip-ties.
"Clear the floor," Gideon ordered. "We're moving her now."
"Moving a coma patient, Boss?" Marcus asked, surprised. "That's risky."
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"Leaving her in a city hospital where Kozlov owns half the night shift is a death sentence," Gideon replied, stepping up to Clara’s bed. He looked down at the woman who had risked her life to run through the snow to save her daughter. "My private medical team at the estate has full life-support gear. Load her into the armored ambulance."
Ten minutes later, the disguised ambulance cleared the hospital bay, carrying Clara Miller safely away into the snowy dark, leaving Kozlov’s hitmen empty-handed in a silent hallway.
