Chapter 7
Vincent’s attention remained on Nicholas. He did not consider the exhausted surgeon in blood-covered scrubs to be a threat.
Helena’s right hand moved without hesitation. Her fingers closed around the textured grip of Nicholas’s customized Beretta 9 mm. The metal was still cold.
She did not lift it like a trained marksman. She fired from her hip, directing the barrel instinctively in the manner her father, a former New York Police Department detective, had taught her at a firing range in upstate New York when she was a teenager.
The gunshot inside the enclosed operating room was deafening. It sounded like a cannon blast. Surgical monitors shattered, and sparks fell over the supply carts.
Vincent screamed.
The bullet did not strike his heart or his head. Helena’s knowledge of anatomy was exact. She had aimed for the largest area that would immediately disable him. The 9 mm round passed through Vincent’s right shoulder, shattered his clavicle, and severed the brachial plexus, the network of nerves controlling his arm.
His suppressed pistol fell onto the linoleum floor. He stumbled backward and clutched his damaged shoulder, his face contorted by pain and disbelief. Blood quickly spread through his pristine suit jacket.
“Do not move,” Helena shouted, her voice breaking with adrenaline.
She held the Beretta in both hands and aimed it at Vincent’s chest.
“Dr. Lynn, activate the alarm. Hit the lockdown alarm.”
Before Dr. Lynn could reach the emergency button, the heavy doors of Operating Room 1 burst open.
Nicholas’s loyal enforcers, alerted by the unsuppressed gunshot, flooded into the room. Within seconds, 3 submachine guns were trained on the people inside.
“Stand down,” shouted a broad-shouldered enforcer named Paulie as he assessed the scene.
He saw his boss bleeding on 1 table, the family matriarch on the other, and the wounded underboss on the floor.
“Take him,” Nicholas said from the table, his voice reduced to a rasp.
He pointed a trembling, bloodstained finger toward Vincent.
May you like
“He poisoned my mother. He tried to finish it.”
Paulie asked no questions. He drove the butt of his rifle into Vincent’s temple, knocking him unconscious, and dragged him into the corridor.
