Chapter 6 - The Ghost in the Clinic
I helped Dante carefully into the back seat of a stolen sedan we found parked near the highway.
Vanessa bravely took the wheel, her small hands gripping the worn leather tightly.
She navigated the slick, dangerously rain-soaked streets of Chicago with surprising skill.
Dante was bleeding incredibly heavily, his labored breaths becoming dangerously shallow.
"Keep direct pressure firmly on the wound, Evelyn," Vanessa instructed frantically from the front seat.
I pressed my trembling hands against his side, my fingers slick with his warm, sticky blood.
Dante looked up at me, his dark, beautiful eyes slowly losing their sharp focus.
"If I die, take the hard drive directly to the federal prosecutor," he murmured softly.
"You are not going to die tonight," I ordered fiercely, fighting back my own tears.
Vanessa suddenly slammed on the brakes, sliding aggressively into a dark, entirely abandoned warehouse district.
We pulled up to a rusty, unmarked metal door completely hidden behind a massive dumpster.
Vanessa honked the car horn exactly three times in a rapid, specific pattern.
The heavy steel door slowly groaned open, revealing a blindingly bright corridor.
Two incredibly large men wearing green surgical scrubs rushed out quickly with a medical gurney.
We carefully moved Dante's limp body onto the rolling stretcher.
They wheeled him rapidly down a brightly lit, sterile subterranean hallway.
I chased desperately after them, tightly clutching the silver hard drive against my chest.
We burst into a sterile operating room packed wall-to-wall with highly expensive stolen hospital equipment.
A tall, broad-shouldered doctor wearing a blue surgical mask was washing his hands at a metal sink.
"We have a through-and-through gunshot wound to the left abdomen," one of the large men barked loudly.
The doctor turned around, slowly pulling his surgical mask down to his chin.
I stopped completely dead in my tracks, my heart stuttering violently.
The breath completely and entirely left my lungs.
I dropped the heavy silver hard drive onto the hard linoleum floor in pure shock.
The doctor looked at me, his tired, weathered eyes widening in absolute, undeniable shock.
It was Marco Moretti.
My beloved uncle, who had supposedly died of a massive heart attack exactly ten years ago.
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"Evelyn," he whispered in disbelief, stepping slowly away from the metal sink.
"You are supposed to be dead," I choked out, unable to comprehend the impossible sight before me.
