Chapter 15 - Breaking the Black Site
Midnight in Rome. The storm clouds above the Vatican roared with thunder as heavy rain washed over the dome of the abandoned psychiatric hospital.
I was no longer just a doctor. I had swapped my scrubs for dark tactical gear, carrying a medical kit packed with surgical paralyzing agents, localized nerve blockers, and scalpels. Dante sat in the passenger seat of our stolen surveillance van, his state deteriorating by the hour. Every thirty minutes, he forgot where we were, and every thirty minutes, I had to hold his face in my hands and repeat the exact same three words: Claire, Mia, Love.
“You stay here with Mia,” I told Marcus, adjusting the tactical harness around my waist.
“You’re going in alone?” Marcus asked, his jaw dropped in disbelief. “Doctor, that facility is guarded by eighty mercenary contractors with thermal imaging.”
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“I’m an ER trauma physician who worked twelve-hour shifts at Seattle General during the worst gang violence in the city’s history,” I said coldly, pulling a syringe of concentrated potassium chloride from my kit. “I know forty-seven ways to stop a human heart using items found in a basic medical tray. Those mercenaries are trained to fight soldiers, Marcus. They aren't trained to fight a mother whose husband is dying.”
I slipped into the shadows of the hospital perimeter, cutting through the rear fence using wire clippers. Rain drenched my hair as I reached the basement ventilation system, sliding into the darkness below.
