Chapter 6 - THE BASEMENT STANDOFF
Romanov stepped into the hospital room, locking the door behind him.
He had survived the restaurant. Which meant Christian was either dead or captured.
“Your boss put up a hell of a fight,” Romanov sneered, wiping a smear of blood from his cheek. “But Antoine knew the layout better. Now, put the kid down.”
Sophie held Max tighter against her chest. The boy buried his face in her neck, trembling violently.
“You won’t get out of here,” Sophie said, forcing her voice to remain steady. “Christian’s men are downstairs.”
“My men are already taking care of them,” Romanov replied smoothly. He raised the gun. “I won’t ask again.”
Answer One: Romanov escaped the restaurant using Antoine’s insider knowledge.
Sophie backed away slowly, her eyes scanning the hospital room. Medical monitors, an oxygen tank, a tray of surgical instruments. Her mother had taught her that every room contained a way out if you looked hard enough.
“Why do you need him?” Sophie asked, buying time. “You have the territory.”
“I want the Callahan name erased,” Romanov said coldly. “As long as the boy lives, Christian’s loyalists will rally around him. I need the bloodline severed.”
Open Two: How did Romanov plan to walk out of a crowded hospital with a dead child without getting caught?
As Romanov took another step forward, Sophie noticed the heavy green oxygen tank standing next to the bed. It was pressurized. Highly volatile.
Reversal: Sophie wasn’t just a waitress. She had spent five years in hospital rooms caring for her mother. She knew exactly what medical equipment could do.
“Close your eyes, Max,” Sophie whispered into the boy’s ear.
She grabbed a heavy metal bedpan from the bedside table and hurled it directly at Romanov’s head.
Romanov ducked, cursing. “You stupid—”
It was a distraction. Sophie didn’t wait. She grabbed the heavy valve wrench resting on the oxygen tank and swung it hard against the brass pressure gauge, snapping it completely off.
A deafening hiss erupted as highly pressurized oxygen blasted into the room.
Sophie dropped to the floor, covering Max with her body.
Romanov panicked, raising his gun to shoot through the chaos. But the sudden influx of pure oxygen caught the spark from the broken bedside lamp that had shattered during the scuffle.
A massive flash of heat and blinding light ignited the corner of the room. The explosion wasn't lethal, but it blew the heavy wooden door off its hinges and threw Romanov violently backward into the hallway.
The sprinklers kicked on instantly, dousing the room in freezing water.
Sophie scrambled to her feet, holding the coughing child. She stepped over the groaning Romanov, grabbing his dropped gun with shaking hands, and ran down the smoke-filled corridor.
She hit the emergency stairwell, taking the steps two at a time down to the basement transit ward.
When she burst through the doors, she saw Christian’s men holding Dr. Evans at gunpoint. And on a gurney in the corner, wrapped in thin blankets, was her mother.
“Mom!” Sophie cried, rushing forward.
Her mother weakly opened her eyes, smiling gently through her pale exhaustion. “Sophie? Why are you wet, honey?”
Before Sophie could answer, the heavy double doors of the basement kicked open.
Antoine stood there, holding a shotgun, with three of Romanov’s surviving thugs behind him.
“End of the line,” Antoine breathed, aiming the barrel directly at Christian’s men.
But suddenly, a dark figure stepped out from the shadows behind Antoine.
A hand reached out, grabbing the hot barrel of the shotgun, pulling it upward just as it fired into the ceiling.
Antoine spun around in shock.
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Standing there, his suit ruined, breathing heavily, and holding a bloody iron pipe, was Christian Callahan.
TITLE: The Broken Manager
