Chapter 7 - The Sanctum Violated
The triage room fell into a dead, terrifying silence, broken only by the rhythmic beep of a heart monitor. The injured Rossi soldiers on the tables tried to reach for their weapons, but they were too weak, their movements sluggish from anesthesia and blood loss.
"Well, well," the lead Maroni assassin sneered, raising his weapon toward Sarah. "The ghost clinic. We heard rumors that old man Rossi found a magic maid who keeps his ghosts alive. Looks like the rumors were true."
Sarah stepped in front of Dominic’s chair, her small frame completely shielding him. Her white coat was splattered with blood, her eyes wide but entirely devoid of cowardice. She had looked into the eyes of death in a freezing cabin; she wasn't going to blink now.
"This is a medical facility," Sarah said, her voice dropping to a cold, razor-sharp whisper. "There are no weapons here. Get out."
"We'll get out when the prince is dead," the assassin replied, shifting his aim past her shoulder toward Dominic, who was struggling to stand, his face contorted in agony as his re-injured hip failed him.
"Sarah," Dominic growled, his hand reaching for her waist to pull her behind him. "Get down."
"No," she said.
Slowly, deliberately, Sarah reached into the pocket of her white coat. Her fingers closed around a heavy, stainless-steel syringe filled with an amber liquid—a concentrated dose of succinylcholine, a powerful paralytic she kept on hand for severe trauma intubations. In high doses, it stopped the diaphragm within ten seconds, causing total respiratory collapse.
"You think you're predators," Sarah said, stepping forward, away from Dominic, drawing the assassins' attention entirely to her. "You think because you carry guns, you own the room. But you don't know anything about the human body. You don't know how fragile a life is."
The lead assassin laughed, lowering his guard slightly as he looked at the small doctor walking toward him. "What are you going to do, Doc? Give me a physical?"
In a flash of movement that no one in the room expected, Sarah slammed her medical tray into the second assassin’s face. The heavy stainless-steel dishes and surgical instruments struck his eyes, blinding him with blood and metal. He screamed, dropping his weapon.
The lead assassin swung his gun back to Sarah, his finger tightening on the trigger.
But the distraction was all Dominic needed.
Ignoring the agony in his hip, Dominic launched himself from the chair, his massive body crashing into the assassin like a freight train. They went down together in a pile of shattered glass and white privacy screens. The gun discharged once, the bullet ricocheting harmlessly into the concrete ceiling.
Dominic pinned the man to the floor, his right fist descending with brutal, repetitive force until the assassin’s face was unrecognizable.
Sarah didn't watch the violence. She turned to the second assassin, who was stumbling blind, reaching for his dropped gun. She stepped in, her face an emotionless mask, and drove the heavy syringe directly into the side of his neck, plunging the amber fluid home.
The man froze. Within five seconds, his knees buckled. Within eight, his chest stopped moving, his eyes wide with a sudden, silent terror as his lungs refused to take in air.
He fell to the floor, motionless.
Dominic stood up slowly, using a metal counter to stabilize his weight. He looked at the paralyzed assassin, then at Sarah, who was calmly discarding the empty syringe into a biohazard container.
A slow, profoundly reverent smile spread across Dominic’s blood-splattered face. He leaned against the counter, letting out a long, ragged breath.
May you like
"Remind me," Dominic murmured, his blue eyes gleaming with an intense, intoxicating mix of awe and desire, "never to make you angry, Dr. Jenkins."
Sarah wiped her hands with a sterile wipe, her breathing slowing down. She walked back to him, her voice returning to its calm, professional cadence. "Sit back down, Dominic. Your hematoma is going to need an ultrasound, and we have a mess to clean up before the morning shift arrives."
