Chapter 3 - The Fortress of Glass
The elevator ascended thirty floors in deafening silence. Inside the private penthouse suite of the hospital’s executive tower, Julian set Lois down on the deep velvet sofa. The city lights of Manhattan sprawled below through floor-to-ceiling windows, fractured by streaks of driving rain.
He called his private physician and two personal bodyguards, who stationed themselves silently outside the double mahogany doors. Julian knelt in front of Lois again, fetching a basin of warm water and a clean linen cloth.
""Tell me about your sister,"" Julian commanded softly, his fingers gently bathing the swollen skin near her temple.
Lois stared at the floor, tears finally spilling past her lashes and dripping onto her scrub pants. ""Her name is Clara. She’s sixteen. She has late-stage leukemia. Christian... Dr. Burke placed her on the experimental trial at his private research facility upstate. He told me if I ever refused his demands, or if I ever spoke about what happens after hours in surgical suite four, he would revoke her drug protocol.""
Julian’s jaw bunched into hard ridges. ""What happens in surgical suite four, Lois?""
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Lois looked up, her hazel eyes dilated with raw panic. ""They aren't just performing surgeries, Julian. They are harvesting organs from unidentified patients brought in from the homeless shelters. It’s an underground syndicate, and Christian isn't working alone.""
Before Julian could answer, the room’s lights flickered twice and plunged into pitch-black darkness, followed immediately by the dull thud of two bodies hitting the floor outside the suite door.
