Chapter 5 - The Ultimate Gamble
“If you are lying,” Lorenzo whispered, his voice dangerously soft, “I will scatter your brains across this rug and feed your body to the pigs on our upstate property before dawn.”
Clara didn't blink. She stared down the black circle of the barrel.
“If I’m lying, you won't have to,” she replied evenly. “You can pull the trigger right now.”
Lorenzo held her gaze for five agonizingly long seconds, searching her eyes for a single micro-expression of terror, a twitch of panic, a telltale sign of deceit. Finding only absolute, unyielding conviction, he slowly lowered the gun, though he didn't uncock it.
“Rico,” Lorenzo commanded without taking his eyes off Clara. “Get the medical kit from the safe in the back vault. And call Dr. Alistair. Tell him his services are no longer required.”
“Boss, are you out of your mind?” Rico protested, his face twisting in disbelief. “You’re trusting a fugitive maid over a team of certified specialists?”
“Get the kit,” Lorenzo repeated, his voice slicing through the room like a razor.
Within minutes, a heavy steel case was slammed onto the mahogany desk. Clara didn't wait for instructions. She snapped the latches open, her fingers instantly identifying the micro-scalpels, the fiber-optic nerve probes, and the local anesthetic vials she had smuggled into her luggage underneath her spare uniforms.
“I need a sterile environment,” Clara said, her professional tone instantly taking command of the room. “Not this dusty study. The ground-floor physical therapy wing. Lock all the doors. No one enters. If anyone so much as breathes outside that glass while I’m working, the vibration could cause a fatal slip.”
May you like
Lorenzo looked at her with a dark, unreadable expression. Then, he nodded to his guards.
“Move Sophia to the therapy wing. Now.”
