Chapter 9 - The Ultimatum At Dawn
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The red recording dot on Marcus Bennett’s phone pulsed like a heartbeat.
"Dante," Marcus spoke into the camera, his voice dripping with sadistic triumph. "Look what I found wandering around the alleys of Newark. Seems like your little engagement party got interrupted."
Marcus tilted the camera downward, showing the heavy sapphire ring on my bruised, zip-tied hand, then panned up to my mother’s pale, unconscious face on the hospital bed.
The hitman disguised as a doctor held the syringe less than an inch above the clear IV tube leading directly into my mother's arm.
"Here are the terms, Moretti," Marcus continued, his eyes manic and bloodshot. "You have sixty minutes. Bring the original Carter logistics files, the signed transfer deeds for the Atlantic shipping lanes, and fifty million in bearer bonds to the old grain silo at Pier 4. Come alone. No Luca, no strike teams, no feds. If I see a single black SUV within a mile of the docks, the good doctor here empties twenty milligrams of potassium chloride into Sarah Carter’s veins. And then Elena gets to watch."
Marcus ended the recording with a smug click of his thumb and hit send.
The room went deathly still, save for the rhythmic *beep... beep... beep* of the heart monitor.
"You're a coward, Marcus," I said, my voice cold, devoid of the tears he so desperately wanted to see. I held my chin up, staring straight into his swollen, bruised face. "You couldn't face Dante like a man in his own ballroom. You waited until his back was turned to sneak into a hospital and threaten an old woman who can barely breathe."
Marcus’s face twisted in rage. He stepped toward me, raising his right hand to backhand me across the face.
"Marcus! Look at the phone!" the fake doctor hissed suddenly, pointing toward the screen resting on the bedside table.
Marcus froze, his hand suspended in mid-air.
The smartphone was ringing. The caller ID displayed no name, only a single, encrypted line of text: *MORETTI - SECURE.*
Marcus took a deep, ragged breath, cleared his throat, and swiped the green icon to answer, switching the call to speakerphone.
"You got the video, Dante?" Marcus mocked, trying to inject bravado into his voice. "Tick-tock. The clock is running."
From the speaker of the phone came a sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
It wasn't a roar of anger. It wasn't a panicked plea.
It was the slow, rhythmic click of a lighter, followed by a long, steady exhale of smoke.
When Dante spoke, his voice was so deep, so absolute in its terrifying calmness, that the temperature in Room 412 seemed to plummet below freezing.
"Marcus," Dante said softly.
"Save the threats, Moretti! You bring the deeds to Pier 4 or they die!"
"Look out the window, Marcus."
Marcus frowned, his brow furrowing in confusion. "What did you say?"
"I said look out the window."
Marcus hesitated, then cautiously took three steps toward the reinforced glass window overlooking the hospital courtyard four floors below. He parted the plastic blinds with the barrel of his revolver.
I watched Marcus’s eyes widen in sheer, paralyzed horror.
The color drained from his face until his bandages looked yellow by comparison. His hand began to shake violently against the blinds.
"What is it?" the fake doctor asked, his voice suddenly lacing with genuine panic. "Marcus, what’s out there?!"
Marcus didn't speak. He couldn't.
From the phone on the table, Dante’s calm, lethal voice continued.
"Did you really believe, Marcus, that my father’s syndicate survived three generations in this city by being outmaneuvered by a spoiled boy with a broken jaw?"
Dante took another slow breath.
"The moment your black van left the municipal alley, your vehicle was tracked by two military-grade surveillance drones hovering at twelve thousand feet. St. Jude Hospital has been entirely surrounded for eight minutes. Every exit is blocked. The power grid has been transferred to my private backup generators. And thirty-six elite operatives from the Moretti perimeter guard are currently clearing the fourth-floor stairwells."
Marcus stepped back from the window, his breath coming in wild, wheezing gasps. "You're lying! You wouldn't risk her! If my man pushes that plunger—"
"Your man won't push anything," Dante interrupted coldly.
*CRASH.*
The heavy double-pane window of Room 412 shattered into ten thousand glittering shards as two flashbang grenades exploded into the room with a blinding, concussive roar.
The sound was like a bomb detonating in an enclosed space. The air pressure ripped the breath from my lungs. The fake doctor screamed, dropping the syringe as he clutched his ears, stumbling backward against the medical cabinet. Marcus shrieked, firing his revolver blindly toward the ceiling.
Before the smoke could even begin to clear, two figures clad in black tactical gear and night-vision goggles vaulted through the shattered window on rappel lines, their boots crushing the glass beneath their feet.
Two suppressed gunshots cracked through the room with dull, precise *thwips*.
The fake doctor collapsed to the floor like a sack of stones, a neat red hole drilled directly between his eyes.
Marcus screamed, scrambling on his hands and knees toward the door, dragging his shattered revolver behind him.
He didn't make it two feet.
The hospital room door was kicked off its heavy steel hinges with a thunderous bang, flying across the room and crashing against the wall.
May you like
Standing in the doorway, through the haze of smoke and drifting glass dust, was Dante Moretti.
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