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The sterile white lights of Trauma Room Two buzzed like an angry hornet. I stared at my daughter’s pale, bruised face, but my mind was violently looping back to a single piece of fabric: the torn cuff stained with dark, coagulated blood, stamped with the monogram D.C.M. / Chapter 5 / 10

Chapter 5 - The St. Mary’s ConspiracyI stared at my brother, my mind racing through decades of memories, realizing how completely I had been played.

"Emily," I ground out, my teeth clicking together. "What does she have to do with your war against me?"

Julian sighed, walking over to a small metal table where a laptop and a medical dossier sat side by side. He picked up the dossier and flipped through the pages.

"Emily is brilliant," Julian said casually. "A top-tier genetic researcher working in St. Mary’s bio-lab division. Six months ago, she stumbled across an unauthorized pharmaceutical trial funded by one of my shell corporations. She found out we were testing a cognitive-suppression neurotoxin—the very same neurotoxin we used to subdue her tonight."

A cold sweat broke out across my back despite the cool air of the bunker.

"She was going to go to the authorities," I said.

"She tried to," Julian replied, his voice hardening. "She confided in the only other person she trusted at the hospital. Her mentor. The man who guided her career."

My heart hammered against my ribs. I knew what was coming, but my brain refused to accept it until the words left his lips.

"Dr. Alan Mercer," Julian smiled thinly. "Your best friend of twenty years. The man who called you tonight at 11:43 p.m. to lure you into the hospital."

The room spun.

Alan.

The man who had stood beside me through my wife’s death, who had patched me up after my missions, who had looked so afraid in Trauma Room Two. It was all theater. A meticulously orchestrated performance designed to draw the mighty Colonel Richard Vance directly into the crosshairs of a trap.

"No," I growled, straining against the zip-ties until the plastic bit deep into my skin, drawing hot beads of blood. "Alan wouldn't betray me. He saved lives!"

"He saved my life, Richard," a new voice echoed from the shadows of the doorway.

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The heavy mahogany door of the dressing room seemed to close in on us, trapping the suffocating tension inside. Richard’s hands were shaking as he clutched the small, tarnished silver pendant. His knuckles were bone-white.

The heavy mahogany door of the dressing room seemed to close in on us, t...

The heavy silver fork slipped from my fingers, clattering sharply against the gold-rimmed porcelain of my dinner plate.

The heavy silver fork slipped from my fingers, clattering sharply agains...

The heavy mahogany door of the Fairmont Copley suite clicked shut with a muffled, expensive thud.

The heavy mahogany door of the Fairmont Copley suite clicked shut with a...

Heavy footsteps approached, and out of the darkness stepped Dr. Alan Mercer. But gone was the warm, sympathetic doctor expression. In its place was a cold, calculating smirk, holding a syringe filled with a shimmering blue liquid.

"Hello, old friend," Alan said softly, tapping the side of the syringe with his thumb. "It's been a long time since the field medic days in Kosovo. Back then, we saved soldiers. Now? We build kings."

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