Chapter 7 - The Unravelling"You monster," I spat, stepping directly in front of Noah, shielding him with my body. "You murdered your own sister!"
"Sarah was weak!" Charlotte snapped, her calm facade momentarily shattering into psychotic rage. "She was going to give away half our father's company to medical research charities! She didn't understand power! She didn't deserve that money! I built Whitman Global into an empire! Me!"
"And now it’s all going to crash down around you," Noah yelled over my shoulder, holding up his cell phone.
Charlotte looked at Noah’s phone, then let out a soft, echoing laugh that chilled me to the bone. "You think you’re broadcasting this, boy? Look at your screen. There is a signal jammer active in this entire sub-basement. No signal goes in. No signal goes out."
I checked my own phone. No Service.
"You've been very persistent, Emily," Charlotte said, turning her icy blue eyes toward me as she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a sleek silver pistol equipped with a silencer. "I'll admit, I underestimated a trauma nurse. But this is where your little heroic story ends. A fugitive mother... an illegal break-in... a tragic murder-suicide in the dark basement of a hospital. The media will feast on it for a week, and then... I will finally claim what is legally mine."
She raised the gun, aiming it directly at my chest.
My mind raced. I looked at the heavy server rack beside me, then at the bright red emergency fire suppression valve mounted on the wall right above Charlotte’s head. St. Jude’s sub-basement wasn't equipped with water sprinklers—it was equipped with high-pressure Halon gas fire-extinguishers designed to smother electrical fires by instantly replacing the room's oxygen.
"Noah, take a deep breath and cover your face!" I screamed.
Before Charlotte could pull the trigger, I grabbed the heavy metal computer monitor off the desk and threw it with all my strength straight into the high-pressure gas line handle on the wall.
CRACK!
The valve snapped open. A deafening roar erupted as clouds of freezing white gas violently spewed into the room.
Charlotte fired wildly into the fog, the suppressed gunshots sounding like soft pops against the roaring gas. The private guards began coughing hysterically, dropping their weapons as the gas instantly stripped the oxygen from the air.
"Go! Go!" I screamed, grabbing Noah’s hand.
We sprinted through the blinding white cloud, dodging the disoriented guards. I slammed my shoulder into Charlotte, sending her flying back against a metal server rack, her gun clattering across the concrete floor into the dark.
We burst out of the server room into the hallway, slamming the heavy iron fire door shut behind us and locking the external latch.
Inside the server room, Charlotte began beating maniacally on the thick reinforced glass window of the door, her face contorted in desperate panic as the gas filled the chamber.
"Let us out!" her muffled voice screamed through the glass. "Emily! Let me out!"
I stood on the other side of the glass, catching my breath, holding my son close to my side.
"I spent seventeen years saving lives, Charlotte," I said coldly, looking her straight in the eyes through the glass. "I’m not going to let you destroy another one."
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I pulled the wall-mounted emergency alarm, triggering the automated ventilation flush for the room just in time to stop the gas from becoming lethal—but locking the heavy doors automatically until the fire department arrived.
Charlotte fell to her knees behind the glass, trapped by the very safety systems of the hospital her money couldn't buy.
