Chapter 15 - The Stairwell Ambush
The night air was biting, smelling of wet asphalt and diesel exhaust from the idling ambulances out front. I slipped through the side door of the hospital’s service annex, my boots silent on the metal grating of the internal stairs. I climbed three flights as fast as my lungs would allow, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
When I reached the second-floor landing that led to the garage ventilation shaft, the heavy metal door was standing ajar, the lock punched out with a hydraulic pry bar.
I drew the Sig, flicked off the safety with my thumb, and slipped through the opening into the narrow maintenance hallway.
The smell of cordite was thick here—sharp, chemical, and burning my nostrils.
A figure was crouched near the ventilation grate, sliding a fresh magazine into a bolt-action Remington tactical rifle with a tactical suppressor screwed onto the barrel. He was wearing a dark tactical vest over a black hoodie, his face hidden behind a neoprene ski mask.
"Drop it," I said, stepping out from the shadow of the doorway, the barrel of my gun locked squarely on the center of his chest.
The sniper didn't drop the rifle. He didn't even flinch. He smiled behind the mask, his shoulders shaking with a low, silent chuckle.
"You're too slow, Moretti," a voice hissed—not the Philadelphia cleaner I expected, but someone whose voice I recognized instantly from the syndicate meetings down at the club.
Before I could pull the trigger, a heavy boot kicked the door open behind me, catching me square in the small of the back and sending me crashing face-first into the concrete floor. The Sig flew from my hand, skittering across the dust and coming to a halt beneath a row of copper heating pipes.
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A foot came down hard on my wrist, grinding the bone against the floor until white-hot pain shot up my arm.
"It’s over, Nate," Sterling’s voice echoed down the corridor as he stepped out from the shadows, holding a leather briefcase in one hand and a snub-nosed revolver in the other. "Your brother gave us a good run for thirty years. But every debt eventually comes due."
