Chapter 5 - Shadows in the NICU
Roman didn't panic. Panic was a luxury for men who didn't know how to kill with their bare hands. In three fluid steps, he grabbed Elena by the arm and pulled her behind the heavy lead-lined partition of the portable X-ray machine tucked into the corner alcove.
The shadows swallowed them just as the overhead lights in the NICU flickered on with a harsh, buzzing hum.
Dr. Adrien Sloan walked into the ward, no longer wearing his white lab coat. He wore a tailored charcoal suit, looking less like a pediatrician and more like a corporate raider closing out a hostile takeover. He carried a sleek black leather briefcase in one hand and a styrofoam cup of coffee in the other.
He didn't go to the nurse's station. He walked straight past it, heading directly toward incubator four.
Roman peered around the edge of the lead shield, his hand slowly sliding his pistol free from its holster. The suppressed barrel caught the amber glow of the nightlights, gleaming with a dull, matte finish.
Sloan stopped in front of the incubator. He set his coffee cup down on the rolling supply cart, popped the latches on his briefcase, and pulled out a manila folder and a small, sterile syringe filled with a clear, viscous liquid.
Inside the incubator, the tiny baby stirred weakly, letting out a faint, pathetic squeak that barely registered over the hum of the monitors.
Sloan looked down at the child with an expression of pure, unadulterated disgust — not the sorrow of a healer losing a patient, but the annoyance of a businessman looking at a failing asset that refused to write off its losses.
"Don't worry, little guy," Sloan muttered softly to the glass box, his voice carrying clearly across the quiet room. "Your miserable little shift is almost over anyway. The Bolaro syndicate has already milked all the sympathy they're going to give. Another twenty-four hours of 'natural decline,' and we pull the plug. Clean, quiet, and nobody asks questions."
He popped the top of the IV port line connected to the infant's arm, uncapped the syringe, and raised it toward the rubber injection port.
Behind the X-ray shield, Roman’s vision turned completely red.
Every drop of blood in his body rushed to his ears. The man standing ten feet away wasn't just a corrupt doctor; he was an executioner playing god with his flesh and blood.
Before Elena could gasp or pull him back, Roman stepped out from behind the partition.
"Drop the needle, Adrien."
The voice didn't echo. It didn't need to. It carried the chilling, supernatural weight of a executioner stepping out of the underworld.
Sloan froze mid-motion. The syringe slipped from his fingers, clattering sharply against the metal rolling cart. Slowly, painfully, the doctor turned around, his face draining of all color until it matched his pristine white shirt.
"Mr... Mr. Bolaro," Sloan stammered, his hands hovering uselessly in the air. "I... I can explain. The boy's vitals were failing, I was just administering a routine palliative stabilizer to ease his transition—"
"You called him 'the boy' instead of my son," Roman said, closing the distance between them with terrifying speed.
Before Sloan could blink, Roman’s hand shot out, grabbing the doctor by the silk lapels of his suit jacket and lifting him off his feet, slamming his spine hard against the glass wall of the incubator. The monitors inside the box flared with a sharp, frantic spike of alarm beeps.
"Where is my son?" Roman snarled, pressing the cold steel barrel of the Sig Sauer directly under Sloan’s chin, forcing the doctor's head back at an agonizing angle.
May you like
"I... I don't know what you're talking about!" Sloan gasped, his hands clawing desperately at Roman’s iron-grip wrists. "The boy in there is your son! It's all in the medical records!"
"The medical records you forged," Elena stepped out from the shadows now, holding the computer tablet up like a weapon. "I pulled the original intake logs, Doctor. And I found the financial wire transfers connecting your offshore accounts to a high-security private adoption clinic three blocks away from here. You didn't let my son die, Roman. They stole him the night of the bombing. They put a dying infant in his place to cover their tracks, and they sold your real son to the highest bidder on the black market."
