Chapter 5 - Blood in the Snow
Elena was already moving.
When the heavy steel door of the service elevator at the end of the east corridor began to pry open with a screech of shearing metal, she didn't run. She grabbed a heavy steel IV pole from the hallway rack, wedged it firmly into the door’s manual override track, and threw her entire weight against it.
Clang!
The elevator doors jammed halfway, trapping an arm and a tactical rifle barrel belonging to one of Crosby’s elite enforcers.
“Gotcha, you little bitch,” a gruff voice grunted from inside the shaft.
Before the man could yank his weapon free, Elena whipped a heavy stainless-steel medical tray off a rolling cart and slammed it down with brutal force across the man’s knuckles. A sharp crack echoed down the shaft, followed by a howl of agony as the man dropped his assault rifle.
Elena didn't hesitate. She kicked the rifle out of reach into the hallway just as Lawson rounded the corner, his gun raised.
Bang.
A single shot echoed through the corridor. The enforcer slumped forward, unconscious, wedged between the elevator doors.
Lawson grabbed Elena by the shoulder, pulling her behind him as he scanned the smoke-filled hallway. “Are you out of your mind? I told you to stay in the suite!”
“Your children are inside that suite,” Elena snapped back, her chest heaving, her amber eyes burning with fierce adrenaline. “And I’m not about to let some thugs ruin my clinical trial after all the hard work I put into it!”
Lawson let out a harsh, bark-like laugh—the first genuine laugh he had emitted in five years.
“You’re out of your damn mind, Elena Vance,” he said, his voice dropping into a warm, dangerous purr.
“I’ve been told that before,” she replied, stepping over the fallen mercenary.
Suddenly, a heavy boot slammed against the reinforced door of the medical suite behind them.
Crosby Vane himself stood in the doorway, a scarred, burly man holding a tactical shotgun, a sadistic grin stretching across his scarred face. Two of his remaining thugs flanked him, weapons raised toward the children’s room.
“Well, well, well,” Crosby sneered, spitting blood onto the pristine floor. “Look at the mighty Lawson Mercer. Reduced to defending a nursery. Step aside, Lawson. Let’s see if your little heirs bleed the same color as the rest of us.”
Lawson raised his Sig Sauer, but a red laser dot flickered across his chest. One of Crosby’s snipers was positioned across the courtyard in the guest house. If Lawson fired, he would die before the bullet cleared the barrel.
A heavy, suffocating silence descended on the corridor.
May you like
Crosby raised his shotgun, aiming directly through the open door toward Jonah and Blythe’s beds.
“Say goodbye to the future, Lawson.”
