Chapter 4 - The Line of Blood
The harsh white fluorescents of Harbor Children’s Medical Center buzzed with an indifferent, clinical cruelty.
When Raphael and Josephine walked through the sliding glass doors, the night receptionist looked up, ready to cite visiting hours—until she locked eyes with Raphael. The sheer, terrifying aura of suppressed violence radiating from him made her instantly look down at her desk and pretend the computer screen was the most fascinating thing in the world.
They walked down the silent third-floor corridor until they reached Operating Room 3. A weary surgeon in bloody blue scrubs stood leaning against the wall, holding a clipboard with trembling hands.
“Are you Ms. Hartley?” the doctor asked softly, looking at Josephine.
She couldn't speak. She simply nodded, her eyes fixed on the closed double doors behind him.
“I’m so sorry,” the surgeon said, bowing his head. “His heart valve was far more compromised than the initial angiograms showed. We fought to keep him on bypass for three hours, but he went into cardiac arrest during the final phase. He’s gone.”
Josephine didn't cry. The grief was so absolute, so devastatingly sudden, that it froze her nervous system. She slid down the cold hospital wall until she was sitting on the linoleum floor, pulling her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth in total silence.
Raphael stood over her. For eleven years, he had carried the crushing guilt of his younger sister’s death—a midnight phone call he had ignored because he was too busy building an empire of blood and concrete. Looking at Josephine now, curled on the hospital floor with nothing left in the world, he saw the exact same ghost haunting his own soul.
He didn't offer empty words. Men in his world didn't comfort with platitudes; they comforted with vengeance.
Raphael turned on his heel. Striding down the corridor, he pulled out his encrypted satellite phone and dialed his security chief.
“Gideon,” Raphael said, his voice dropping to a low, lethal growl.
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“Boss? Where are you? We heard about the highway intercept—”
“Gather every loyal soldier in the Boston chapter,” Raphael interrupted, cutting him off. “Equip full tactical gear. Viktor Vance just signed his own death warrant.”
