Chapter 4 - Shadows in the Hospital
Tommy hit the polished linoleum floor on his knees, trembling so violently his teeth chattered.
“Please!” Tommy blurted out, throwing his hands up defensively. “Please, Mr. Russo! I swear to God I didn't mean to lose the money! It was a bad hand, just a stupid poker bluff at the Southside club, but I’ll pay it back! I swear I’ll work every day of my life until every dime is—!”
“Shut up, Tommy,” Rachel snapped, dropping to her knees beside him and pulling him up by his jacket. “Stop screaming. You’re in a hospital.”
“Rachel?” Tommy blinked, finally registering his sister standing in blue scrubs inside a guarded VIP suite surrounded by armed men. “What are you doing here? Did they grab you too? Oh god, they’re going to kill us both—”
“No one is killing anyone,” a cold, measured voice cut through the panic.
Daniel walked slowly around his desk, stopping two feet away from the cowering twenty-two-year-old. He looked down at Tommy the way an entomologist looks at a particularly uninteresting beetle.
“Stand up, boy,” Daniel commanded.
Tommy scrambled to his feet, hiding half behind his sister.
“You owe fifty thousand dollars to my table,” Daniel said smoothly. “In cash, it’s a drop in the ocean. To a kid working a retail job, it’s a mountain. How did a low-level clerk manage to rack up that kind of debt in three weeks?”
Tommy swallowed hard, his eyes darting nervously toward Matteo. “I... I didn't just play poker, Mr. Russo. I was invited. By a regular at the club. A guy who said he could help me clear my debts if I just did him a few small favors.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed instantly. “What kind of favors?”
“He... he asked me about my sister,” Tommy stammered, casting a guilty glance at Rachel. “He asked where she worked, what shift she pulled at St. Jude’s, what doctors were assigned to the VIP NICU ward. He gave me five thousand dollars in cash just to answer a few questions about the hospital security layout.”
Rachel stared at her brother, horrified. “Tommy, what did you do?”
“I didn't know!” Tommy cried, tears springing to his eyes. “I swear I didn't know it was about the baby! The guy said he was just checking on a relative! He wore an expensive suit, he had a watch like yours, Mr. Russo—he looked like somebody important!”
Daniel’s face drained of all color. The temperature in the room plummeted so fast Rachel could see her own breath in the air.
“What was his name?” Daniel asked, his voice dropping into a lethal hiss.
“I... I don't know his name!” Tommy sobbed. “But... but I have his business card! In my jacket pocket! He told me to call him if anyone asked questions!”
Matteo moved like lightning, grabbing Tommy by the lapel and ripping his jacket pocket open, fishing out a sleek, matte-black business card with embossed silver lettering.
Matteo handed it to Daniel.
Daniel looked down at the card. For the first time since Rachel had met him, the unbreakable, untouchable mafia boss physically recoiled. His hand trembled—just slightly—as he read the name embossed on the card.
It wasn't a rival syndicate boss. It wasn't a street-level loan shark.
It belonged to Dr. Alan Harrison. Chief of neonatology.
Before Daniel could speak, the hospital’s master alarm system shrieked to life.
Wooo-wooo-wooo.
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The overhead fluorescent lights flickered once, twice, and then died completely, plunging Suite A into the eerie, pulsating red glow of the emergency backup generators.
Outside in the corridor, a muffled burst of gunfire echoed through the heavy doors.
