I was cleaning blood off an ER stretcher when the ambulance doors flew open and my whole life came in unconscious.

"Mr. Walker, stay where you are," Assistant Special Agent in Charge Marcus Reed said over the burner phone line. "We have been investigating Mayor Vance's connection to Apex Bio-Tech for six months, but we lacked the hard internal chemical logs to make an arrest. Do you have the drive?"

"I have the drive and the hard copy files," I said, standing in a phone booth across the street from St. Mercy Hospital. "But Detective Vance is inside the hospital right now. My son is in Pediatric ICU and my wife is in Adult ICU. They're going to kill them to close the loop!"

"My tactical team is five minutes away from St. Mercy," Agent Reed replied sternly. "Do not go in there alone, Ethan. Let us secure the perimeter."

"They don't have five minutes!" I yelled, seeing a dark SUV with tinted windows pull into the hospital’s emergency bay. Two men in dark suits stepped out—the same kind of men Dr. Pierce had warned me about.

I hung up the phone. I couldn't wait.

I threw my hoodie over my head, shoved the micro-drive into my sock, and sprinted across the street toward the hospital's ambulance bay.

Using my nurse's badge, I bypassed the locked security doors of the basement and took the service elevator straight to the 4th floor—Adult ICU.

When the elevator doors opened, the hallway was unnaturally quiet.

The main nursing station was empty. A coffee cup was spilled over on the counter, still warm.

My heart sank into my stomach.

I crept down the hallway toward Bed 6—Laura's room.

Through the glass window, I saw Detective Vance standing next to Laura’s bed. She was holding a syringe filled with a clear liquid, injecting it directly into Laura’s IV line!

"NO!" I screamed, tearing open the glass door and tackling Detective Vance to the ground.

The syringe flew out of her hand, shattering against the hard floor. Vance snarled, pushing me off with trained force, her hand going straight for her sidearm.

"You stupid nurse!" Vance hissed, drawing her pistol. "You should have stayed out of this! Your wife and brother ruined everything!"

Before she could raise the barrel, Dr. Pierce appeared in the doorway holding a heavy stainless-steel defibrillator paddle. With a roar, he slammed the heavy metal paddle right into the side of Vance's head.

CRACK!

Detective Vance slumped to the floor, knocked instantly unconscious. Her gun clattered across the linoleum.

"Pierce!" I gasped, pulling myself up off the floor.

"I saw her enter the room with a fake medication tray," Pierce panted, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Ethan! She already gave a dose to your brother in room 4! We need to push atropine now!"

"Where's Noah?!" I yelled in total panic.

"Noah is safe—I had the pediatric nurses move him to the neonatal ward under alias guards twenty minutes ago!" Pierce said. "Run to Mason! I'll purge Laura's IV line!"

I sprinted down the hall to Room 4. My brother Mason was seizing on his bed, the heart monitor shrieking in high-pitched panic.

"Hang on, Mason!" I shouted, grabbing a syringe of Atropine from the crash cart and injecting it directly into his central line to counteract the organophosphate poison Vance had just administered.

I began manual chest compressions, pounding on my brother's chest with all the strength left in my body.

"Breathe, Mason! Breathe! Come back!" I screamed, tears streaming down my face. "You brought the evidence! We're finishing this! Don't you dare die on me!"

Beep... Beep... Beep...

The chaotic cardiac rhythm on the monitor suddenly smoothed out into a stable sinus rhythm. Mason's body relaxed. His chest gasped for air as the medication fought off the toxin.

Outside in the hallway, heavy boots thundered down the corridor.