Chapter 9 - Beneath St. Catherine's
Damian kept me in the elevator with a gun pressed against my ribs.
He did not look frightened. That was the most frightening thing about him. Men who panicked made mistakes. Damian had spent his life turning other people’s panic into opportunity.
“You were eighteen when my father died,” I said.
His eyes shifted toward me. “You have done the math.”
“You said he begged.”
“He did.”
The doors opened into the parking garage. A black sedan waited with its rear door open. Theo stood beside it, blood soaking the bandage around his thigh.
“You left Adrian alive,” Damian said.
Theo’s face tightened. “You ordered me to bring you Nora.”
“I ordered you to kill him.”
“I had no clear shot.”
Damian struck him with the pistol. Theo staggered but did not fall.
In that moment I saw what betrayal had purchased him: not power, not safety, only a new master who despised him.
They forced me into the car.
As we drove south, Damian explained the past with the vanity of a man who believed confession was another form of victory.
His father, Robert, had built Project Mercy into a fortune. When Patrick Callahan discovered the falsified patient records, Robert ordered Lieutenant Sullivan to frighten him. Vincent Hargrove escalated the plan to murder. Damian, eager to prove himself, drove the men to St. Catherine’s and watched from the loading dock as smoke filled the basement.
“I heard your father pounding on the fire door,” he said. “He shouted your name.”
My fingernails cut into my palms.
“You were a boy,” I said.
“I was old enough to understand that mercy makes victims.”
“No. Cowardice makes witnesses.”
His smile disappeared.
The car entered the underground service ramp of the hotel built over St. Catherine’s foundation. We descended past public parking into sealed construction levels.
Cold Storage 7 had been emptied. In its center stood a chair beneath a hanging work light.
Damian tied my wrists behind it.
“The patient list,” he said. “Where did Patrick hide it?”
“The tape was erased.”
“He said it was somewhere only Margaret could access.”
“I do not know.”
Theo leaned against the wall, breathing hard. His wound had reopened.
I looked at him. “You are bleeding through the femoral bandage.”
“It is not femoral.”
“Your pant leg is filling with blood.”
Damian glanced at him with irritation. “Handle it.”
“I need my hands free,” I said.
“No.”
“Then he may pass out before Adrian arrives.”
“Let him.”
Theo stared at Damian.
That was the first crack.
I kept my voice calm. “You served Adrian for nine years. He would not leave you to bleed.”
“Adrian used me.”
“How?”
“My brother was killed in one of Vincent’s wars. Adrian promised to punish the crew responsible. Instead, he absorbed them.”
“He ended the war.”
“He protected killers.”
Damian laughed softly. “Do not let the paramedic perform therapy, Theo.”
I looked at the blood reaching Theo’s shoe. “Untie one hand or lose the leg.”
Theo hesitated, then cut the rope around my right wrist.
Damian raised his gun. “What are you doing?”
“Keeping your driver conscious.”
I pressed a folded cloth against Theo’s upper thigh and tightened a makeshift pressure wrap. My fingers found the wound. It was not arterial yet, but close.
“You need surgery,” I whispered.
“I need money.”
“Damian will kill you when this is over.”
Theo’s gaze met mine. He already knew.
At eleven fifty-eight, Adrian entered alone carrying a steel case.
His face was bruised from the fight, and his hands were empty. He stopped when he saw me tied to the chair.
“Release her.”
Damian extended a hand. “Company seals first.”
Adrian placed the case on the floor and opened it. Inside were Margaret’s corporate seal, encrypted authorization token, and signed transfer documents.
“You signed?” I asked.
“My mother did.”
I knew at once it was a lie. Margaret would never surrender. Adrian was buying time.
Damian scanned the documents. “You gave up everything.”
“No,” Adrian said. “Only what can be rebuilt.”
“For her?”
“For the chance to kill you later.”
Damian grinned. “There is my cousin.”
He ordered Theo to take the case.
Theo stepped forward—and stumbled deliberately.
The authorization token slid across the wet floor toward me.
I kicked it beneath the chair.
Damian turned to retrieve it.
Adrian moved.
He crossed the space in two strides and struck Damian’s gun hand. The weapon fired into the ceiling. Theo drove his shoulder into Damian from behind.
I cut my remaining rope on a sharp bracket beneath the chair.
Gunfire erupted from the corridor. Damian’s men were not alone.
Lena and Chicago police stormed the basement from opposite entrances. Sullivan, one arm in a sling, led the detectives.
Damian grabbed the ledger from a nearby table and ran into the old tunnel system.
Adrian followed.
I did too.
The tunnels were filling with smoke. Damian had planted incendiary charges, recreating the conditions of the fire twenty years earlier.
We found him at the rusted fire door where my father had died.
Flames climbed behind him. The ledger was tucked beneath his arm, and his gun aimed at Adrian.
“You cannot save everyone,” Damian said.
“No,” Adrian replied. “But I can stop you.”
They fired at the same time.
Adrian fell.
The sound that left me did not feel human.
Damian turned toward the tunnel exit.
Then the old fire door slammed shut in front of him.
Theo stood at the manual control, holding the lever down.
Smoke swallowed Damian’s scream.
I dropped beside Adrian and found blood spreading across his chest.
His eyes opened once.
“Nora,” he whispered. “The patient list. My mother’s first hospital. Her office wall.”
May you like
The tunnel seemed to hold its breath with me. I remembered his hand covering the back of my head in the library, his irritated obedience while I stitched his side, and the almost-smile he tried to hide whenever I challenged him. None of those moments had felt like a beginning while they happened. Now, with blood warming my hands, they felt like everything I had not yet been brave enough to name.
Then his pulse disappeared beneath my fingers.
