Chapter 17 - The Lion's Den
The double doors of Operating Theater 1 swung open under Aiden's boot.
The surgical suite had been turned into an execution ring.
Five heavily armed mercenaries stood along the perimeter with automatic carbines leveled at our chests.
In the center of the room, seated casually on a stainless-steel operating table, was Vittorio Valenti.
Half his face was a mosaic of melted scar tissue, but his remaining blue eye burned with malevolent lunacy.
Beside him stood the man holding the remote detonator for the neurotoxin canisters.
And standing just two steps behind Vittorio, wearing a clean tactical rig with Aiden’s syndicate insignia, was James.
James—the young lieutenant Aiden had personally pulled out of the gutters of South Seattle five years ago.
The boy Aiden had treated like a younger brother.
"James," Aiden spoke, his voice dangerously soft, devoid of all inflection.
James couldn't meet Aiden's eyes; his gaze darted guiltily toward the tiled floor.
"He promised me my family back, Boss," James stammered, his fingers twitching on his rifle strap.
"He took my mother and sister in Chicago three weeks ago."
"I didn't have a choice!"
"There is always a choice, boy," Vittorio sneered, tapping his silver cane against the surgical floor.
"He chose loyalty to blood over loyalty to a broken king who surrendered his fangs for a woman."
Vittorio slid off the operating table and took three slow, limping steps toward us.
"Look at you, Aiden."
"The greatest weapon the Valenti bloodline ever bred, kneeling before a nurse."
"Your father was weak, your mother was a traitor, and you are a sentimental fool."
Aiden didn't flinch. He stood tall, his broad frame shielding half my body from the mercenaries' sights.
"You dragged innocent children into this, Vittorio," Aiden said, his deep baritone reverberating off the tiled walls.
"Your quarrel was with my father and me."
"Let the children go, and you and I will settle this on the harbor docks."
Vittorio let out a wet, rattling cackle that sent ice through my veins.
"The children are irrelevant," the old monster hissed.
"I want what Arthur Vance stole from my laboratory thirty years ago."
"The synthetic neurotoxin ledger that can bypass every bio-detection grid on earth."
"It's worth four hundred million dollars on the international black market."
"Give me the master key, or I release the compound right now and watch every child in this wing choke on their own lungs."
"The ledger doesn't exist, Vittorio," I said, stepping out from behind Aiden's shoulder.
Vittorio's single blue eye locked onto me with predatory amusement.
"Arthur’s little girl," he purred. "You have your father’s stubborn eyes."
"My father didn't keep a weapon," I said, holding up the silver thumb drive between my index finger and thumb.
"He synthesized the antidote before he died."
"Every chemical formula, every molecular compound to neutralize your poison is on this drive."
May you like
"If you trigger those canisters, I drop this drive down the bio-waste incinerator chute right behind me."
"Your four-hundred-million-dollar empire will be worthless within ten seconds."
