Chapter 5 - The Bedside Vow
Clara didn’t pull away. She didn’t look at me with horror or disgust.
Instead, she squeezed my hand with every ounce of strength remaining in her bruised fingers. The tears in her eyes dried, replaced by a cold, hardened resolve that I had never seen in her before. Growing up under the thumb of a cruel, abusive father had made her resilient; losing her unborn child had made her fearless.
“Don’t let them walk away, Damon,” she whispered, her voice no longer trembling. “Promise me.”
“They are already in hell, Clara,” I replied quietly. “They just haven't realized it yet.”
Dr. Vance, the chief of surgery, entered the room quietly, accompanied by two private nurses. He checked her monitors, adjusted her IV drip, and gave her a mild sedative to help her sleep.
As Clara’s eyes grew heavy and she drifted back into a peaceful sleep, I stood up and motioned for Dante to follow me out into the private lounge outside her suite.
The lounge was surrounded by tactical screens displaying live feeds from Facility B at the docks.
On the central monitor, nine men were chained to steel chairs in a circle inside a windowless concrete room. The water from the harbor leaked through the ceiling, dripping rhythmically onto their heads. They had been stripped to their undershirts, shivering violently in the damp, fifty-degree chill.
Hector Ross sat in the center, his head bowed, sobbing quietly. His eight sons were arguing loudly among themselves, cursing each other, blaming their father for bringing them into this mess.
“They’re breaking down, Boss,” Dante observed, handing me a glass of twenty-year-old single malt whiskey. “Mason and Caleb almost got into a fistfight an hour ago before the guards separated them.”
“Have you made contact with Victor Vane?” I asked, taking a slow sip of the amber liquid.
“Yes,” Dante replied. “Victor is waiting at his private club in Manhattan. He thinks we’re meeting to negotiate a buyout of the Ross family’s debt. He has no idea you’ve seized all of Hector’s physical assets.”
“Assemble the strike team,” I ordered, setting my glass down on the glass table with a heavy clack. “Sixteen men. Heavy tactical gear, suppressors, no badges. We leave in ten minutes.”
“And what about the Ross brothers down at the docks?” Dante asked.
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I looked at the monitor screen, watching Caleb—the brother who had kicked my pregnant wife—cursing at one of my silent guards.
“Feed them salt water and bread,” I said coldly. “Let them sit in the dark for twelve hours. I want their minds completely broken before I deliver their sentence.”
