Chapter 6 - A Price on Her Head
The rain began falling as Dante’s heavily armored SUV tore through the slick streets of Louisville, tires screeching against the asphalt as they blew through red lights. Sirens howled in the far distance, but Dante’s convoy moved with military efficiency, cutting off traffic and creating an impenetrable barrier around them.
In the passenger seat, Piper gripped the pistol in her lap, her eyes fixed on the rain-swept windshield.
""Why are you doing this?"" she asked softly over the roar of the engine. ""You could have sent your men. You didn't have to risk your own neck for an old man with dementia.""
Dante kept both hands on the wheel, navigating a sharp turn onto Frankfort Avenue. ""My entire life, people have looked at me with fear or greed. When you looked at me in that ballroom, you saw a man. You mocked me, challenged me, and looked straight through the armor.""
He glanced at her, his expression raw in the dashboard light. ""And your father fought for my family when he had nothing to gain. The Morettis pay their debts, Piper. Especially when it comes to the people who matter.""
The people who matter. The words sent a jolt of warmth through her chest despite the freezing dread clawing at her stomach.
Within minutes, they screeched to a halt outside the St. Matthews Care Facility. The front glass doors had been shattered.
Dante didn't wait. He drew his weapon and kicked the remnants of the glass door aside, storming into the lobby with Piper right behind him. Two security guards were unconscious behind the reception desk, bound with zip ties.
From the second-floor stairwell, gunshots echoed.
""Upstairs!"" Piper cried.
They took the concrete stairs three at a time. On the second floor, the corridor was clouded with drywall dust and the sharp smell of cordite. Two men in black tactical gear lay neutralized near the nurses' station, where Dante’s undercover scouts had already engaged them.
""Room 214!"" Piper shouted, sprinting past the gurneys toward the room at the end of the hall.
She kicked the door open.
Inside, Camille Everly was standing over Walter Monroe’s bed, holding a syringe filled with clear liquid. Walter sat propped against his pillows, staring blankly out the dark window, humming a fractured melody from the 1960s, completely unaware of the peril hovering inches from his neck.
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""Back away from him, Camille!"" Piper yelled, raising her pistol with both hands, aiming dead center at her boss’s chest.
Camille froze. When she turned, her face was twisted into a mask of pure, ugly venom. ""Piper. You always were an insolent, ungrateful little wretch.""
