Chapter 6 - The Breach of the Penthouse
The power grid inside the west wing of Mercy General failed at exactly four o'clock in the afternoon.
The bright, cheerful lights of the penthouse suite blinked out, replaced instantly by the dull, ominous red glow of the emergency backup strips along the baseboards. The steady beep... beep of Sarah’s vitals monitor died, replaced by the low, mechanical hum of the internal battery reserve.
“Dante!” Sarah cried out in the dim red light, her hands instinctively reaching into the dark.
“Stay down, Sarah,” Dante commanded, his voice sharp and cold as ice. He was already moving across the room. He snatched Emily from the sofa in one swift movement, tucking the little girl behind the heavy leather armchair in the corner. “Emily, stay behind this chair. Don't make a sound. Remember what your mommy taught you about emergencies?”
Emily nodded, her green eyes wide with terror, but she bit her lip and pulled the cashmere blanket over her head, disappearing into the shadows.
Dante pulled a sleek, silver semi-automatic pistol from his shoulder holster, checking the chamber with a practiced, silent click. He stepped toward the heavy wood-paneled door, positioning himself in the blind spot beside the frame.
From the hallway came the sound of running footsteps—heavy, rubber-soled boots clicking against the terrazzo. A muffled grunt followed, the distinct sound of Frank’s body hitting the floor outside after a physical struggle.
The electronic lock on the suite door groaned as it was bypassed with a mechanical override key. The door swung open, throwing a shaft of red emergency light into the room.
A man stepped through the gap, holding a silenced submachine gun. He wore a dark security uniform, but his face was rough, marked by a jagged scar across his chin—one of Leo Moretti’s primary street enforcers, a man named Rico.
He didn't get the chance to raise his weapon.
Dante’s arm shot out from the dark like a striking viper. His large hand grabbed the barrel of the submachine gun, twisting it upward with a brutal, bone-snapping force. Rico let out a sharp cry of pain as his wrist broke, the weapon discharging a harmless burst into the acoustic ceiling tiles.
Before the enforcer could recover, Dante brought the butt of his silver pistol down across the man’s temple. The impact was heavy, final. Rico dropped to the floor like a sack of stone, his weapon clattering across the polished terrazzo.
Two more men appeared in the doorway, their guns raised.
Dante didn't hesitate. He fired three times through the red gloom, the sharp, deafening cracks of his pistol echoing through the small suite. The first man took a bullet to the shoulder, spinning around and collapsing into the corridor. The second man fired wildly into the dark, a stray round shattering the glass window behind Dante, showering the room in a sharp rain of crystal.
Dante stepped forward through the broken glass, his face completely devoid of human emotion, looking like the Don his enemies feared. He fired his final round, catching the second enforcer in the thigh, sending him crashing down beside his companion.
The hallway was quiet again, save for the groans of the wounded men and the distant, wailing sirens of the NYPD responding to the hospital’s automated silent alarm.
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Dante stood in the doorway, his gun pointed down at the floor, his breathing steady, his suit completely unaffected by the violence that had just unfolded in the dark. He looked down the corridor, where Leo Moretti stood near the elevator bay, his face white, his hands raised in absolute surrender as Frank—bleeding from a cut on his forehead but still standing—held a gun to the back of his neck.
“Six years ago, I let you live because I thought you were just a businessman, Leo,” Dante said, his voice echoing through the red-lit hallway like a funeral bell. “That was my only mistake. I don't make mistakes twice.”
