Chapter 5 - The Brother's Secret
“Down!” Daniel roared, moving with terrifying speed.
In a single fluid motion, Daniel ripped the mobile privacy curtain around the incubator, shoved Rachel and Tommy behind the heavy mahogany desk, and drew a sleek, suppressed Glock from his shoulder holster.
“Matteo! Status!” Daniel barked into his encrypted comms earpiece as heavy boots thudded down the hallway outside.
"Boss, we’re compromised!" Matteo’s voice crackled through the static, punctuated by the sharp crack of return fire. "Hit squad! Four, maybe five men in tactical gear! They bypassed the ground-floor security checkpoints using hospital override codes!"
Daniel’s jaw tightened. Hospital override codes. Only three people in the entire facility possessed the master administrative codes: the hospital administrator, the head of security, and Dr. Alan Harrison.
“Protect the door,” Daniel ordered coldly.
Rachel crouched behind the desk, clutching Tommy’s trembling shoulder. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She looked across the room at the incubator. Leo was stirring, woken by the blaring emergency alarms and the distant concussions of gunfire.
“Mr. Russo,” Rachel called out over the din of the alarm. “His heart rate is spiking! If he wakes up and panics in the dark, the sensory overload could trigger cardiac arrest!”
Daniel didn't turn around. He stood crouched beside the reinforced doorframe, his gun aimed dead center at the entryway. “Keep him calm, nurse Jenkins. That is your only job.”
“I can’t calm him from behind a desk!” Rachel yelled back, her voice cutting through the chaos. “He needs deep pressure! He needs skin contact!”
Daniel hesitated for a fraction of a second—a battle between the cold calculus of a mafia war and the desperate instincts of a father. Then, without a word, he holstered his secondary weapon with one hand, reached down, lifted the sleeping infant out of the incubator with astonishing gentleness, and shoved Leo directly into Rachel’s arms.
“Take him,” Daniel commanded. “If anyone comes through that door, you and my son go out the emergency fire escape window behind the bathroom. My car is waiting in the alley.”
“And you?” Rachel asked, her eyes wide.
May you like
Daniel’s lips curved into a cold, merciless smile. “I’m going to have a talk with Dr. Harrison.”
Before Rachel could reply, the heavy oak door of Suite A exploded inward.
