Chapter 7 - Fractured Loyalties
The reinforced panic closet inside the master suite was lit only by a battery-operated surgical lamp. Harper lay on an emergency cot, her breathing ragged, her body trembling uncontrollably.
""She's fully dilated, Dr. Chen,"" the senior nurse whispered urgently, wiping sweat from Harper's brow. ""The baby’s heart rate is decelerating. We cannot delay any longer. If we don't deliver now, the fetus will asphyxiate.""
""Prepare the scalpel,"" Dr. Chen ordered, his hands steady despite the muffled gunshots and mechanical thuds reverberating through the ceiling. ""Harper, look at me. I'm administering a local spinal block. You won't feel the incision, but you must remain completely still. Do you understand?""
Harper nodded weakly, tears streaming down into her ears. ""Please... save my baby. If anything happens... tell Julian...""
""Nothing will happen to you, Quinn,"" Dr. Chen said gently. ""Julian would burn this city to ash if I let you slip away.""
Just as the doctor raised the surgical instrument, the heavy biometric lock on the panic room door chirped twice. The heavy steel door unlatched with a hiss of pneumatic pressure.
The nurse gasped, dropping a tray of sterile tools that clattered against the floor.
Dr. Chen grabbed a heavy stainless-steel flashlight, raising it defensively as the door swung open. Standing in the doorway, soaked in sweat and clutching a bloody hunting knife, was Marcus Bell. His arm was bent at an unnatural angle from where Julian had dislocated his shoulder earlier, but his eyes burned with manic, desperate adrenaline.
""Step away from her, Doctor,"" Marcus wheezed, lunging forward with terrifying speed.
Before Dr. Chen could swing the flashlight, Marcus drove the blade forward, slicing deeply into the doctor's forearm. Chen cried out in shock, falling back against the instrument cart.
The two nurses screamed, retreating into the corner of the small room.
Marcus turned his bloodshot gaze toward Harper, who was paralyzed from the waist down from the initial dose of the spinal anesthetic, unable to move her legs. She could only watch in sheer horror as the man who had tormented her for eight months approached the bed.
""You should have died in Switzerland, Harper,"" Marcus hissed, his voice cracked with insanity. ""Do you know how much Valenti offered me for this child? Fifty million dollars and a sovereign estate in Tuscany. Enough to escape Julian’s shadow forever.""
He reached out, his bloody, filthy hand grabbing the front of her hospital gown, dragging her forward.
""Don't touch me!"" Harper screamed, using all the strength left in her upper body to scratch violently at his face, her fingernails tearing bloody furrows down his cheek.
Marcus snarled in fury, raising his knife to strike her shoulder to subdue her. ""Shut up, you ungrateful—""
A massive hand shot out of the shadows behind him, closing around Marcus’s throat like an iron vise.
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Julian had arrived.
With a roar of primal, unadulterated fury, Julian lifted his brother clean off his feet and hurled him out of the panic room, sending Marcus crashing violently through the glass coffee table in the master bedroom.
