Four of my most trusted men stood at the elevators. Two more were posted at the fire exits. Marcus Vance, a man who controlled the flow of every illegal shipment from Manhattan to New Jersey and owed me his life three times over, met me in the private consultation room down the hall.
Marcus looked at me, his sharp tailored suit a stark contrast to the sterile hospital backdrop. “You look like a ghost, Callahan. Or a man ready to become one.”
“Julian is back,” I said, pouring two fingers of scotch from a flask Ryan had brought me. I didn’t drink it. I just held the glass, watching the amber liquid shake slightly. “He’s targeting Hannah. He knows about the pregnancy.”
Marcus whistled softly through his teeth. “Julian always was a sadist, but this? Touching the woman? That violates the council’s code. If he does this, he invites a war he can’t win.”
“He doesn’t want to win a war, Marcus. He wants to destroy me. He knows that if I lose her, I lose my mind. And a man without a mind can’t run an empire.” I slammed the glass down on the table, shattering the base. “I want him found. I don’t care how many doors you have to kick in. I don’t care how many of his suppliers you have to hang from the rafters. Find him.”
“It’s already done,” a quiet voice spoke from the shadows near the door.
It was Ryan. He held a tablet, his face grim. “We tracked the burner phone that sent the message to Hannah. The tower pinged off an abandoned meatpacking plant near the high line. But Jack… there’s something else.”
He handed me the tablet. It showed a live surveillance feed of the street outside the hospital. A black SUV with tinted windows was idling at the corner, its exhaust plume rising into the rainy night air.
“They’re watching us,” Ryan said. “They’ve been there for twenty minutes.”
A dark, twisted smile touched my lips. The fear that had gripped my chest since 10:03 p.m. suddenly evaporated, replaced by the beautiful, toxic rush of adrenaline. They thought I was trapped here. They thought I was a wounded animal protecting its mate.
They forgot that a wounded animal is the most lethal thing in the woods.
“Marcus, stay here with four men. If anyone so much as looks at Hannah’s door wrong, shoot them through the wall,” I ordered, pulling a heavy, matte-black Sig Sauer 9mm from the hidden compartment in my briefcase. I checked the chamber with a satisfying clack.
“Jack,” Marcus warned, his hand resting on my shoulder. “You’re walking into an ambush. He wants you to come to him.”
“I know,” I replied, looking out the window at the rain. “But he thinks I’m coming to negotiate. He doesn’t realize I’m coming to cremate him.”
I walked back into Hannah’s room before I left. She was asleep, breathing softly under the influence of the sedatives Dr. Lawson had administered to keep her blood pressure down. The pale light of the monitors highlighted the delicate curve of her cheek.
I leaned down and whispered into her ear. “Ninety-three days ago, I told you I didn’t love you. It was the only lie I ever told you, Hannah. I loved you so much it tore me apart. Sleep now. When you wake up, the monsters will be gone.”
I turned and walked out, Ryan falling into step beside me, the heavy thud of our boots echoing down the empty corridor like the opening notes of a funeral march.
Part 4: The Meatpacking District
The rain had turned into a torrential downpour by the time we reached the industrial district. The air smelled of rotten river water and wet rust. The abandoned meatpacking plant loomed like a rotting carcass against the dark Manhattan sky, its corrugated iron walls streaked with grime.
We didn’t use headlights. Ryan rolled the sedan to a halt three blocks away, and we moved through the shadows on foot, our long coats billowing in the wind.
Four of my men moved around the rear exit, their movements silent, professional, deadly. Ryan and I took the front entrance—a heavy steel door that had been left slightly ajar. An invitation.
We slipped inside. The interior was freezing, the air thick with the faint, metallic memory of slaughtered cattle. Hooks hung from rusted tracks on the ceiling, swaying gently in the draft, clinking together like hollow teeth.
“Jack!” a voice echoed from the darkness above.
It was a theatrical voice, dripping with false warmth and underlying malice. Julian.
A single spotlight clicked on in the center of the vast warehouse floor. Standing beneath it, dressed in a sharp white trench coat that looked absurdly clean in this filth, was my brother. Two men stood beside him, their hands buried inside their heavy jackets.
“You always were punctual when it came to your toys,” Julian mocked, his eyes glittering with a manic, unstable light. “Though I must say, I didn’t think you had it in you to knock her up. The great, unfeeling Jack Callahan, starting a family? It almost makes me sentimental.”
I stepped into the light, my gun lowered but ready. Ryan remained in the shadows, a lethal ghost waiting for the word.
“Where is the rest of your crew, Julian?” I asked, my voice calm, flat, dead. “You didn’t come to New York with just two dogs.”
Julian laughed, a high, reedy sound that bounced off the metal walls. “Oh, the others are making sure your hospital security is… occupied. You thought you locked that place down? I own half the city cops on the night shift, brother. By now, your precious Hannah is probably being moved to a more secure location. My location.”
My heart stopped for a fraction of a second. The SUV outside the hospital. It hadn’t been a scout crew. It had been a distraction.
But then I remembered Marcus. And I remembered the look in Ryan’s eyes before we left. We hadn’t just secured the hospital; we had set a trap there, too.
“You always were a terrible chess player, Julian,” I said softly. I drew my phone from my pocket and pressed a single button, putting it on speaker.
A second later, Marcus’s voice filled the warehouse over the static. “Jack. Three of Julian’s men just tried to breach the freight elevator. They’re dead. The floor is clean. Hannah is safe.”
Julian’s smile vanished, his face turning an ugly, mottled red. “You arrogant bastard—”
“No,” I interrupted, raising my gun. “I’m just a man who has nothing left to lose except the only thing that matters to him. You touched her, Julian. You made her cry. You made her starve.”
