Chapter 7 - Isabella’s Poisoned Parlor
The assault was silent, brutal, and terrifyingly fast.
Before our SUV even reached the gate, two suppressed gunshots popped in the
distance—sounding like wet towels snapping against concrete. On the drone feed,
the two thermal signatures guarding the front entrance collapsed into the weeds.
A black tactical truck emerged from the shadows of the tree line, its heavy
steel bumper ramming the iron gates off their hinges with a violent, screeching
crunch.
We drove straight through the wreckage, gravel spraying beneath our tires,
pulling up to the overgrown front steps of the sanatorium.
“Stay in the vehicle,” Adrian ordered, grabbing his assault rifle from the
floorboard.
“No,” I said, grabbing his arm before he could step out.
He paused, looking back at me with raised eyebrows.
“He’s my father, Adrian,” I said, my voice steady despite the trembling in my
knees. “He hasn't seen a friendly face in fourteen years. If your armed men kick
his door down, his heart might give out. He needs to see me.”
Adrian studied my face for three long seconds. He saw no hesitation there. No
weakness.
He reached down, grabbed a spare tactical vest from under the seat, and slipped
it over my head, pulling the velcro straps tight against my ribs.
“You stay two paces behind me,” Adrian said, his tone leaving no room for
argument. “You don't peek around corners. You don't pick up anything off the
floor. If I tell you to drop, you drop flat. Understand?”
“Understood.”
My mother reached out from the back seat, catching my sleeve. “Claire... be
careful. Bring your father home.”
“I will, Mom,” I promised, squeezing her fingers before stepping out into the
cold, rain-soaked night.
The air around the asylum smelled of wet rot, rusted iron, and pine needles. The
wind howled through the cracked window panes of the upper floors, creating an
eerie, whistling moan that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
Four of Adrian’s tactical operators, clad in full black body armor and
night-vision goggles, stacked up along the peeling double doors of the entrance.
Vince gave a hand signal. Three fingers. Two. One.
The lead operator kicked the front door open, clearing the entryway with raised
rifles.
“Clear!”
We moved inside. The lobby was a graveyard of peeling paint, overturned gurneys,
and water-damaged drywall. Water dripped rhythmically from the ceiling into
yellowed plastic buckets.
We moved swiftly up the central concrete staircase, our boots splashing through
puddles. The building was dead silent, save for the hum of an ancient industrial
diesel generator vibrating through the foundation.
As we reached the third-floor landing, the smell changed.
The rot and dampness were suddenly replaced by the sharp, sterile scent of
bleach, rubbing alcohol, and dried blood.
At the far end of the long hallway stood a reinforced steel security door,
glowing beneath the harsh white light of a single fluorescent bulb.
Beside the door, sitting tied to a metal folding chair, was a man in a white
doctor’s coat. His nose was broken, blood dripping down his chin, his eyes wide
with absolute terror.
Two of Adrian’s operators were standing over him, their rifles pointed at his
chest.
“He was the attending physician, Mr. DeLuca,” one operator reported. “He had the
access keys.”
Adrian walked up to the trembling doctor, towering over him like an avenging
shadow. “Where is Thomas Morgan?”
“R-Room 412,” the doctor stammered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. “At the
end of the hall. But you’re too late!”
Adrian grabbed the doctor by his lapels, lifting him half out of the chair.
“What did you say?”
“Miss Romano!” the doctor wept, spitting blood onto the linoleum floor. “She
arrived twenty minutes ago! She took the helicopter from the private executive
pad in Schaumburg! She’s inside with him right now!”
My blood turned to ice water.
Isabella.
She hadn't tried to jump the elevator cables to escape the city. She had used
her family’s private aviation assets to beat us here.
Adrian didn't waste a second. He dropped the doctor, raised his boot, and kicked
the reinforced latch of Room 412 with bone-crushing force.
The heavy door banged against the interior wall.
We rushed in, rifles raised.
The room was a retrofitted medical suite, brightly lit by buzzing surgical
lamps. In the center of the room was a narrow hospital bed flanked by an IV pole
and an idling heart monitor.
Lying on the bed, strapped down by heavy leather restraints around his wrists
and ankles, was an emaciated, white-haired man.
And standing beside the bed, holding a stainless-steel syringe filled with
clear, lethal liquid poised over the man’s IV port, was Isabella Romano.
She was still wearing her torn silver evening gown, her hair wild and matted
from the rain, her mascara smeared across her face like war paint.
“Back up!” Isabella screamed, her voice cracking with wild, manic adrenaline.
“Back the hell up, Adrian, or I push this plunger and stop his heart before you
can blink!”
Adrian’s operators froze, their red laser sights dancing across her chest and
forehead.
“Don't do it, Isabella,” Adrian warned, his rifle leveled steadily at the bridge
of her nose. “You kill him, and you don't leave this room alive.”
“I don't care anymore!” she shrieked, her thumb resting on the syringe’s
plunger. “My father’s empire is finished if that ledger gets out! Everything we
built! Everything we bled for! I won't let some little waitress and a half-dead
engraver tear down my family!”
I stepped out from behind Adrian’s shoulder, ignoring his sharp command to stay
back.
I looked at the bed.
The old man on the mattress slowly turned his head toward me. His skin was
paper-thin, stretched tight over sunken cheekbones, but his eyes... his eyes
were the same warm, gentle hazel I had stared into across a workbench fourteen
years ago.
The jagged scar above his left eyebrow twitched.
His dry, cracked lips parted.
“...Little Sparrow?” he whispered, his voice barely louder than the hum of the
fluorescent lights.
A sob tore through my chest, shattering every shred of fear I possessed.
I looked at Isabella Romano.
May you like
And for the first time in my life, I felt the cold, lethal rage of someone who
was ready to kill.
