The funeral parlor was flooded with light. Too much light. The kind of harsh, fluorescent brightness that was meant to chase away shadows of death but only made the silence feel heavier. The funeral parlor was flooded with light. Too much light. The kind of harsh, fluorescent brightness that was meant to chase away shadows of death but only made the silence feel heavier.

The spray of safety glass flew through the air like a sheet of ice.

The fake orderly turned, startled by the explosion of glass, but Lena was already on him. She tackled him mid-torso, driving him backward over the rolling supply cart. Instruments, needles, and stainless steel trays crashed onto the tile floor with a deafening racket.

The hitman grunted, driving a sharp elbow into Lena’s ribs. Pain flared through her side, but six years in a women's penitentiary had taught Lena how to absorb a blow and keep fighting. She grabbed the man's hair with one hand and gouged her thumb straight into his eye socket.

The man shrieked, dropping the glass bottle. He reached for a scalpel on the floor, flipping it upward toward Lena’s throat.

BANG!

A single gunshot echoed inside the small ICU room.

The hitman went limp. He collapsed sideways against the wall, a neat hole punched through his chest. Behind him stood Detective Miller, his gun smoking, his face pale but resolute.

Out in the hallway, the second intruder was dragged down by the recovering trooper and pinned to the floor in handcuffs.

Lena ignored the dying man at her feet. She scrambled onto her hands and knees, reaching for the bed. "Maya! Maya, breathe!"

Maya was blue, gasping helplessly for oxygen as her monitors shrieked in continuous alarm. Lena grabbed the dropped oxygen mask, wiped the blood from the plastic, and sealed it tightly over her sister's nose and mouth. She squeezed the manual resuscitation bag attached to the line, pumping sweet, clean air into Maya’s starving lungs.

One... two... squeeze. One... two... squeeze.

After four agonizing seconds, Maya’s chest rose sharply. A deep, ragged gasp filled the mask. The heart monitor’s wild alarm slowed down, settling back into a steady, rhythmic beep.

Maya opened her eyes. She looked at Lena, her fingers weakly curling around Lena’s orange sleeve.

Medical staff and armed officers flooded the room, but Miller stepped in front of them, waving them back.

"Search these men!" Miller ordered the troopers. "Find out who hired them!"

One of the troopers checked the dead hitman's pockets, pulling out a encrypted burn phone and a heavy gold signet ring bearing a crest — a stylized serpent wrapped around an oak tree.

Miller took the ring, his eyes narrowing. "The Sterling family crest. Marcus Sterling."

Lena wiped sweat from her forehead, standing up beside her sister's bed. "Sterling isn't just their lawyer, Miller. He’s the mastermind. Six years ago, when my grandfather died, Sterling was the executor of the estate. He's the one who set up the legal loopholes."

Miller looked at the shattered room, at the dead assassin, and then at Lena. The last remnants of his professional doubt evaporated into thin air.

"This hospital isn't safe," Miller said flatly. "Sterling owns half the city officials, and he clearly has contacts inside the police department. If we keep Maya here, they'll try again before sunrise."

"Then we take her out," Lena said.

"Where?" Miller asked. "If I take her to a police station, Sterling's lawyers will serve a custody injunction or file an emergency medical transfer order. If I take her to my house, they'll find us in an hour."

Maya weakly tugged on Lena’s sleeve. Her hand moved slowly, drawing a shape in the air — an oval with lines radiating outward. A sun over water.

Lena looked at her sister, a sudden spark of memory igniting in her eyes. "The cabin," Lena whispered. "Grandfather’s old hunting cabin at Blackwood Lake. It wasn't listed in the official probate inventory because it was deeded under a private land trust."

"Is there power? Medical supplies?" Miller asked.

"No power. But it's deep in the mountains, off the grid, and no one knows it exists except us," Lena replied.

Miller took a heavy breath. He looked down at his badge, then unpinned it from his leather jacket and set it on the bedside table.

"If I do this, I'm committing kidnapping, obstruction of justice, and official misconduct," Miller said softly. "My career is over."

"Your career was ruined six years ago when you put an innocent woman in prison, Detective," Lena said, her voice hard as steel. "This is your chance to fix it."