CHAPTER 3 — THE MAN WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD
For three seconds...
Nobody moved.
The empty incubator stood beneath the bright NICU lights like a silent accusation.
The blanket was still warm.
Gabriel had been there less than a minute earlier.
Now he was gone.
Dominic Romano didn't shout.
He didn't panic.
That frightened everyone far more.
He slowly picked up the single playing card lying inside the incubator.
The Ace of Spades.
Its edges were burned black.
Only one organization had ever used that symbol.
The Black Circle.
Dominic himself had destroyed them ten years ago.
Their leader...
Victor Kane...
had died in a warehouse explosion.
Or so everyone believed.
"Seal every exit," Dominic ordered quietly.
Within seconds, armed bodyguards flooded every hallway.
Hospital doors locked automatically.
Police scanners exploded with reports of an armed lockdown.
Doctors, nurses, and terrified families were ordered to remain inside.
Meanwhile, Elena stood frozen.
She wasn't thinking about the kidnapped baby.
She was staring at the silver pendant Dominic had shown her.
It couldn't be.
Her father had carried the matching half every day until the night he was murdered.
Only two identical pendants had ever existed.
One belonged to her family.
The other...
To someone responsible for destroying it.
Dominic noticed her expression.
"You recognize it."
Elena looked away.
"No."
"You just lied."
"I'm leaving."
She turned toward the service elevator.
Dominic didn't stop her.
Instead, he quietly said,
"My father gave me this pendant when I was ten."
Elena stopped walking.
"He said it belonged to the only honest man who ever saved his life."
She slowly turned around.
"My father's name was Daniel Brooks."
"My father's name was Thomas Carter."
Dominic frowned.
"Then why..."
Elena whispered,
"...does he have my father's necklace?"
Before Dominic could answer, gunfire erupted somewhere below.
Three rapid shots.
Then screaming.
One of Dominic's men rushed into the hallway.
"Boss!"
"They're inside the hospital."
Down in the underground parking garage...
Security cameras showed six masked men pushing a medical transport incubator toward a waiting ambulance.
But something was wrong.
The ambulance wasn't trying to escape.
It had driven directly into a dead-end loading bay.
Almost as if...
It wanted Dominic to follow.
Dominic smiled grimly.
"A trap."
One bodyguard asked,
"Do we still go?"
Dominic slid a pistol into his jacket.
"They took my son."
His eyes became cold.
"They don't get to choose the battlefield."
Unknown to everyone...
Elena quietly followed.
Because she had seen something on one kidnapper's wrist.
A tattoo.
A black raven.
The same tattoo...
May you like
...the man who murdered her father had worn twenty years ago.
End of Chapter 3
