Chapter 5 - The Poisoned Pawn
Clare dragged the massive, bleeding mafia boss into the back seat of the armored SUV.
Her hands were completely covered in his warm, dark blood.
She jumped into the driver's seat, started the roaring engine, and slammed her foot onto the accelerator.
The heavy vehicle smashed through the shattered garage doors and sped out into the rainy, chaotic night.
Gabriel groaned from the back seat, pressing his hands desperately against the deep stab wound in his side.
He gave her breathless, strained directions to a hidden clinic on the outskirts of the city.
Clare drove like a madwoman, weaving through traffic and running red lights in sheer terror.
They finally reached an abandoned meatpacking warehouse, crashing through the chain-link fence.
A team of underground doctors was already waiting, dragging Gabriel onto a steel medical gurney.
Clare collapsed onto a metal folding chair in the bloody hallway, her entire body shaking uncontrollably.
She pulled her cracked phone from her pocket and saw a missed call from St. Jude's hospital.
She quickly dialed the night nurse, desperate for any good news in this nightmare.
The nurse answered immediately, her voice frantic and hushed.
The nurse confirmed that the thirty thousand dollars had successfully cleared the billing department.
Clare let out a massive sigh of relief, leaning her head against the cold cinderblock wall.
But then the nurse told her the horrific results of the latest blood panel.
Her sister did not have a natural bacterial infection.
The lab results proved someone had intentionally injected her sister with a slow-acting, lethal biotoxin.
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Clare's phone slipped from her trembling fingers and shattered on the floor.
Someone had poisoned her sister just to push Clare to the absolute brink of desperation.
