Chapter 28 Chapter 28

Chapter 28 Chapter 28
Elara’s POV. 

Every five seconds, the emergency strobes pulsed, illuminating the wreckage of the intake ward. Nurses were huddling behind the reception desk, their eyes wide with the kind of terror usually reserved for natural disasters, while Dante’s men moved past them.

"Stay low," Dante rasped, his hand a heavy, grounding weight on my shoulder.

I followed him, stepping over the zip-tied body of a hospital security guard. I looked around, waiting for the National Guard people, the bark of military orders, or the flash of a government-issued rifle. There was nothing but the sound of the alarm.

"He lied," I said, my voice cutting through.

Dante didn't turn back. "About what?"

"The National Guard. Silas said they were at the gates. He said they had orders to shoot you on sight." I scanned the empty lobby. "There's no one here but us and the staff he abandoned."

Dante paused at the base of the admin stairwell, his weapon raised toward the darkness above. 

"He was stalling," Dante muttered. “He wanted me to wait for a backup so he could finish his business with you."

"He’s upstairs," I said, pointing toward the third floor. "Admin wing."

We hit the stairs. Lorenzo was already there, holding the landing with a submachine gun, his eyes darting between the doors. Marco was on the floor above, dragging a struggling security chief by his collar.

"He locked the admin wing down!" Marco shouted over the alarm. "Remote override from inside! We can't blow the door without taking out the whole wall!"

Dante moved to the heavy steel door, his fist connecting with the metal. "Open it!"

"I can't!" Marco yelled back.

I stepped past them, moving toward a small, flickering terminal tucked into a recessed alcove. My fingers moved over the keys. "Move. I was a resident here, remember?”

Dante stood over me, his shadow covering the terminal. "Can you do it?"

"Silas thinks he’s the only one who knows the architecture of this place," I muttered, my eyes scanning the lines of code. "But he forgot that the residents run the night shifts. We’re the ones who have to break into the admin files when the servers crash."

I punched in a secondary override code, a back-door used by the maintenance staff. 

The lock on the admin door opened. 

"We’re in," I said.

But something wasn't exactly right.

Computers had been wiped, their screens glowing with "No OS Found" errors. File cabinets stood open and empty, their contents shredded or gone. I looked into the server room as we passed; the hard drives had been pulled from the racks, leaving behind nothing but a tangle of useless fiber-optic cables.

"He knew you were coming," I whispered to Dante.

Dante slowed his pace, his gun leveled at the end of the hall. "Then he waited for me."

We reached the double doors of the Chief Psychiatric Consultant’s office. There was no noise from inside or even any movement.

Dante turned the handle, It was unlocked.

The office was a jarring contrast to the chaos in the hallways. It was perfectly clean. Not a single paper was out of place. One desk lamp was on, Silas Vane was sitting in his high-backed leather chair, his hands folded over his lap. He looked like he was waiting for a scheduled appointment.

Dante stepped in, and aimed directly at Silas’s forehead. "End of the line, Silas. Stand up."

Silas didn't move. He didn't even look at the gun. His eyes were on me. A slow, mocking smile spread across his face.

"I was wondering if you’d bring him, Elara," Silas said. "The blunt instrument. The man who solves every psychological problem with a lead injection."

I stepped around Dante, placing myself in the center of the room. I needed to see Silas's hands. "Where are the files, Silas? The warrant. Miller’s affidavit. I want the proof that this was a fabrication."

"You always were the top of the class," Silas murmured. He reached out, and slid a thick manila folder across the polished surface of the desk. "Go ahead. It’s all there. Miller’s falsified reports. The logs of the 'confidential witness' calls that never happened. The planted evidence in your apartment from three years ago."

I grabbed the folder, my hands shaking as I flipped through the pages. It was all there. The signatures, the lies, the paper trail.

"You did this," I said, looking up at him. "You used Christian to validate this nightmare."

"I assisted," Silas said, leaning back. "But don't give me too much credit, Elara. I didn't create the conspiracy. I simply inherited it."

Dante’s finger tightened on the trigger. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means you think your problems started with the Moretti family," Silas said, his voice dropping to a lower tone. "You think you’re a victim of a mafia war. But you’ve been a target since long before you met Dante. You’ve been a project since the night your father died."

I felt the air leave my lungs. "My father died because he was sick. Because Miller hounded him."

"Your father died because he was about to publish a study on the neurochemistry of the Syndicate’s leadership," Silas said. "He was looking into the hereditary nature of power and violence in New York. He wasn't just sick, Elara. He was dangerous to people far more powerful than the man holding that gun."

"You're lying," I spat.
"Am I?" Silas asked. "Why do you think Miller was so obsessed with an eighteen-year-old student? Why do you think he tried so hard to put you in a ward? It wasn't to silence a witness. It was to ensure the 'specimen' stayed within the system."

"Enough," Dante roared. "We're taking him."

"Are you?" Silas asked.

He reached for the underside of his desk.

"Dante, wait!" I shouted, but it was too late.
Silas pressed a button. Instantly, heavy steel security shutters slammed down over the windows and the door, sealing us in. 

From the vents above, a thick, sweet-smelling white smoke began to fill the room.

"Smoke!" Dante coughed, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the wall. "Don't breathe it in!"

I covered my mouth with my sleeve, looking toward the desk. Silas wasn't there anymore. Behind the desk, a section of the wall had slid open, revealing a private service elevator.

"He's getting away!" I screamed.

Dante fired three rounds into the elevator doors as they hissed shut, the sparks flying off the metal, but it was useless. 

Silas was gone.

The smoke was getting thicker, stinging my eyes. Dante was slamming his shoulder against the steel shutters on the main door, but they didn't budge.

"Lorenzo! Marco! Get us out of here!" Dante yelled, his voice muffled by the smoke.

I dropped to my knees, the air clearer near the floor. I still had the folder gripped in my hand. As the papers spilled out, I saw something I hadn't noticed before. A second file, tucked into a hidden flap at the back of the folder.

It was older. The paper was yellowed at the edges.

DR. ELIAS VANCE – PSYCHIATRIC CLEARANCE REPORT

My heart stopped. This was my father’s final evaluation before his death. The one that was supposed to prove he was stable enough to stay in the hospital’s voluntary wing. The one that had gone missing from the state archives.

I flipped to the last page, looking for the signature of the attending physician who had declared him a suicide risk and authorized the high-dosage sedatives that had led to his final 'episode.'

I saw the name. My vision blurred.

It was signed by Dr. Silas Vane.
But that wasn't the part that made the world tilt.

Beneath Silas’s signature, in the 'Next of Kin' authorization line, the line that required a family member to sign off on the experimental treatment that had killed my father, there was a name I recognized.

Isabella Rossi.