Chapter 25 - The Traitor’s Price
Vincent pulled back, his professional mask dropping instantly into place. He picked up the receiver and pressed it to his ear.
"Speak," he commanded.
A voice drifted through the speaker, distorted by an electronic scrambler, but unmistakably cold and familiar.
"You always were hard to kill, Moretti."
It was Dante.
Vincent didn't flinch. "You destroyed a historic estate, Dante. You killed twelve of your own men, and Chicago’s police department has already issued a federal alert for your convoy. You’re done."
"Am I?" Dante chuckled, the sound thin and rattling through the receiver. "You think you survived because of your brilliant little tunnel, Vincent? You think you made it to that old cold-storage facility on the south canal because you're clever?"
Vincent’s body went completely rigid. His eyes darted around the safehouse—at the ventilation shafts, the reinforced door, the security monitors showing the empty industrial street outside.
"How do you know where we are?" Vincent asked, his voice deathly low.
"Did you really think Marco was the only rat in your house?" Dante mocked, his tone dripping with triumphant cruelty. "Marco was the distraction, you idiot. Marco was the loud, greedy fool I paid to draw your attention while my real investment settled into place."
I felt the blood drain from my face. My gaze shifted across the room toward the clean room.
Dr. Evans was standing inside the airlock.
He was no longer looking at the vitals monitor. He was standing directly beside Lily’s bed, holding a stainless steel syringe filled with a clear, colorless liquid.
"Dr. Evans..." I gasped, the words catching in my throat.
Evans looked up through the glass. There was no terror in his face anymore. No trembling hands. Only a profound, dead resignation.
"I'm sorry, Claire," Evans said, his voice carrying through the two-way intercom on the wall. "My son is in a private hospital in Manhattan. Dante paid for his heart transplant three years ago. I've belonged to New York long before you brought Lily to Chicago."
"Evans, don't!" Vincent roared, drawing his weapon and aiming it directly at the reinforced glass of the clean room.
"If you shoot the glass, Mr. Moretti, the ricochet will tear right through her incubator," Evans said softly, his thumb resting on the plunger of the syringe, the needle hovering barely two inches above Lily’s intravenous central line. "And if you break the seal, the outside air will contaminate her before the marrow can fight."
Through the satellite phone on the bench, Dante’s laughter was loud, clear, and utterly merciless.
"Ten minutes, Vincent," Dante purred. "Open the blast doors and walk out with your hands up, or Evans pushes five milligrams of potassium chloride into that catheter. Chicago is mine. Chicago has always been mine."
The call disconnected with a hollow click.
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Outside the warehouse, the low, synchronized rumble of four heavy armored engines vibrated through the concrete floor. Dante’s convoy had arrived.
And inside the clean room, the needle touched the port of my daughter’s IV line.
