Chapter 3 - The Price of a Cleaning Shift
The hallway outside Room 412 turned into a slaughterhouse in under thirty seconds.
Ethan stepped out into the dim corridor just as the first Moretti thug rounded the corner, a submachine gun raised. Ethan didn’t hesitate. A single, muffled shot echoed down the hall, and the enforcer dropped instantly, dead before he hit the floor.
Two more rushed forward from the nurses' station, firing wildly, shattering the fluorescent lights overhead in a shower of sparks and glass. Shards rained down like frozen rain.
Ethan slid across the polished floor, taking cover behind a heavy medical supply cart, returning fire with clinical precision. Two shots. Two center-mass hits.
The last man standing—a burly veteran with a jagged scar across his cheek—lunged around the cart, grabbing Ethan by the lapels of his suit. "Vincenzo says hello, Cole! You can’t protect every stray dog in this city!"
Ethan stared into the man’s eyes, his expression completely blank. With a sudden, explosive torque, Ethan drove his elbow into the man’s ribs, heard the sickening crunch of bone, and then slammed the thug’s head against the wall until he crumpled unconscious.
Standing amid the smoke and scattered medical supplies, Ethan straightened his tie. His hands didn’t shake.
He walked back into Room 412, where Sophie was trembling, her hands clamped over her mouth.
"It's over," Ethan said smoothly, holstering his weapon. "For now."
"Why?" Sophie wept, her voice breaking. "We're nobody. We're just cleaners. Why are they hunting us? Because I missed two days of work?"
"No, Sophie," Ethan said, walking over to the window and looking out at the rain-slicked streets. "They aren't hunting you because of the cleaning shift. They're hunting you because your husband—the man who abandoned you two years ago—didn't just walk out on a family. He walked out with something belonging to Vincenzo Moretti."
Sophie stopped crying. Her breath hitched. "David... David is dead."
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"David is very much alive," Ethan corrected coldly, turning to face her. "And he stole forty million dollars in bearer bonds from the Moretti syndicate before he vanished. The contract you signed to clean my building? It wasn't random. It was planted by David’s associates to use you as bait. And little Amy walked right into the crosshairs."
The silence in the room was heavier than death itself. Sophie stared at Ethan, realizing the terrifying truth: her entire life had been a lie, a fabricated cage, and now, the most dangerous man in Seattle was the only thing standing between her daughter and the grave.
