Chapter 5 - The Snake in the Grass
The atmosphere in the private hospital room turned instantly hostile. Dominic’s eyes narrowed into slits of cold steel as he stepped away from Lily’s bedside, his protective instincts kicking in.
"Who, Aaron?" Dominic demanded, his voice a low, lethal purr.
"Victor Ross," Aaron replied, his hands tightening at his sides. "He’s been quiet since the warehouse hit, but one of our guys in the security office just caught him accessing the hospital’s internal database. He saw the donor logs. He knows you donated three units of AB-negative blood to a girl named Lily Monroe. And he’s already putting the timeline together."
Victor Ross was Dominic’s second-in-command, a ruthless, ambitious captain who had been angling for the throne for years. He had always played the loyal soldier, but beneath his polished exterior lay the cold heart of a traitor. If Victor knew Dominic had a daughter, he had the ultimate leverage to destroy the Vale empire.
"He's coming here," Claire whispered, her face turning a pasty, terrified white as she clutched Lily’s sleeping hand. "Dominic... oh my god, he's going to kill her."
"No one is killing anyone," Dominic said, his voice carrying the absolute weight of a king issuing a decree. He turned to Aaron. "Lock down the floor. Get our men from the perimeter up here. I want this wing sealed tighter than a vault."
"Already on it, boss," Aaron said, tapping his earpiece. "But Victor has contacts in the city police. If he stages a hit here, it'll be a bloodbath. We need to move the girl."
"She’s too weak to be moved!" Claire cried out. "The surgery was only two days ago! If her internal stitches tear, she’ll bleed to death before we can get her back to an operating room!"
Dominic looked at his daughter, his heart aching with a fierce, possessive love he had never known he was capable of feeling. He had spent his life protecting territory, money, and power. But looking at Lily, he realized none of those things mattered. This girl was his real empire. And he would burn the city to the ground before he let anyone hurt her.
"We stay," Dominic said, his voice steady and calm, the absolute eye of the storm. "We turn this hospital into a fortress. Aaron, call the SWAT captain on our payroll. Tell him to divert any patrol cars away from this district for the next two hours. If Victor wants a fight, we’ll give him one he won't survive."
Suddenly, the lights in the hospital room flickered.
Once. Twice.
And then, with a low, heavy hum, the power grid went completely dark.
The emergency backup generators kicked in a second later, illuminating the corridor with a dim, eerie red glow. The heart monitors beside Lily's bed beeped in warning as they switched to battery power.
"They're here," Aaron whispered, drawing his suppressed handgun from beneath his coat.
"Claire, get under the bed," Dominic ordered, his hand moving to his shoulder holster, pulling out his own sleek, black semi-automatic pistol. "Now."
"Dominic—"
"Do it!"
Claire scrambled beneath the heavy metal frame of the hospital bed, pulling the sterile drapes down to hide herself and keeping a tight grip on Lily’s dangling hand from below.
The heavy double doors of the pediatric wing rattled. The sound of muffled gunshots echoed from the end of the corridor, followed by the heavy, metallic thud of bodies hitting the floor.
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Dominic stood in the center of the dark room, his silhouette illuminated only by the pulsing red emergency light. He raised his weapon, his finger resting lightly on the trigger, his heart beating with a cold, steady rhythm.
The battle for his daughter's life had begun.
