Chapter 4 - The Debt I Never Agreed To
The first shot hit the metal filing cabinet above my head.
The sound inside the dark clinic was deafening.
I flattened myself against the floor.
Gabriel did not.
He moved.
One second he was crouched beside me; the next he had dragged me behind the concrete half-wall separating reception from the treatment corridor.
"Back exit," he whispered.
"Mateo is outside."
"Which means if they're inside, somebody pulled him away."
That thought was worse than the gunfire.
A flashlight beam swept across the waiting room.
Gabriel reached beneath his coat and drew a compact pistol.
I stared at it.
"You brought a gun into my clinic?"
He looked at me in disbelief.
"Now?"
"I have principles."
"Develop survival instincts."
A man stepped around the desk.
Gabriel fired once.
The intruder dropped with a cry, clutching his thigh.
Gabriel did not shoot again.
"Move," he told me.
We ran low through the treatment corridor.
I heard another shot behind us, then the crash of a tray of instruments. My pulse hammered so hard I could taste metal.
At the rear door, Gabriel stopped suddenly.
"Wait."
"Why?"
He pointed.
A thin wire had been looped around the push bar and connected to something I could not see in the dark.
"Trap," he said.
"How do you know?"
"Because I have worse hobbies than you."
He pulled me toward the laundry room instead.
There was a narrow ground-level window above the industrial sink. Too small for Gabriel's shoulders. Just big enough for me.
"No," I said immediately.
"Go."
"I'm not leaving you."
"Norah—"
"You are bleeding again."
Even in the darkness I could see the wet shine spreading across his shirt.
He grabbed my face with both hands.
The gesture shocked me into silence.
"Listen to me," he said. "Get outside. Find Mateo. Call the number I gave you."
"And you?"
"I will follow."
"That's a lie."
"It's a plan."
"Bad distinction."
A voice sounded from the hallway.
"Rossy!"
Gabriel's expression hardened.
"Window. Now."
I climbed onto the sink.
He boosted me despite the wound, and I wriggled through broken mesh into the rain.
I landed badly in mud behind the building.
For half a second I considered running.
Then I heard another shot from inside.
I swore, turned around, and looked for anything useful.
A fire extinguisher hung beside the rear loading ramp.
I grabbed it.
The door trap was still there, but from outside I could see the wire attached to a cheap pressure alarm, not an explosive.
I yanked the wire loose, slammed the rear door open, and discharged the extinguisher into the hallway.
White chemical fog exploded through the clinic.
Someone shouted.
I shouted louder.
"Fire department! Hands where I can see them!"
It was a terrible bluff.
It worked for approximately two seconds.
Two seconds was enough.
Gabriel came through the fog, hit one man hard in the wrist, and sent a gun skidding under an exam table.
Then Mateo burst in from the front with two security men.
The fight ended quickly after that.
The attackers fled through a side corridor. One escaped. One was captured. One remained on the floor cursing his leg wound.
I sat on a supply crate and shook so badly I could not open a bottle of water.
Gabriel took it from me, twisted the cap, and handed it back.
"You came back in."
"You were bleeding."
"They had guns."
"You say that as if it makes bleeding less medically relevant."
He stared at me.
"You're insane."
"You're welcome."
Mateo appeared with a bruised cheek.
"Power line was cut. Two men jumped me by the alley."
"You okay?" I asked.
"Embarrassed."
"That's survivable."
Gabriel pressed a hand to his abdomen.
I pointed toward the procedure room.
"Table."
"Norah—"
"Table."
He obeyed.
While I repaired two reopened stitches, Mateo searched the injured attacker.
He found a burner phone, a keycard, and three folded sheets of paper.
One of them was a copy of the North Vale invoice.
The second contained my home address.
The third made my stomach drop.
It was a list of St. Jude's patients from the previous six months.
Names.
Dates.
Diagnoses.
Some had stars beside them.
"Where did they get that?" I whispered.
Mateo looked grim.
"Someone has access to your records."
"We don't even keep digital records for half these patients."
I took the sheet.
The stars bothered me.
I recognized several names.
A dockworker with a crushed hand.
A teenage girl treated for dehydration.
A man who had arrived with a stab wound and refused to give a last name.
Then I saw one name near the bottom.
Luis Serrano.
I looked up at Mateo.
His face went blank.
"Your brother?"
He took the paper from me.
"Cousin."
"He was at St. Jude's?"
"Six months ago."
I remembered Luis now. Quiet man, mid-thirties, puncture wound near the shoulder, claimed it came from construction equipment.
"He lied about how he was hurt," I said.
Mateo's jaw tightened.
"He worked security at the south docks. He disappeared two days after that visit."
Gabriel sat up despite my glare.
"Victor told me Luis stole money and ran."
Mateo looked at him.
"He didn't."
Not a question.
Gabriel did not answer.
I studied the list again.
The starred patients had something in common.
Most had come from neighborhoods near shipping yards or freight depots.
"These aren't random patients," I said. "Someone was tracking people connected to the docks."
Mateo turned to the captured attacker.
"Who gave you this?"
The man smiled through clenched teeth.
"Go to hell."
Gabriel slid off the table.
"Leave him."
Mateo stared.
"Gabriel—"
"Police will find him."
That surprised all of us.
"You want police involved?" I asked.
"I want Victor to believe we don't have him."
Mateo understood first.
"Let the attacker call whoever hired him after booking. Track the contact."
Gabriel nodded.
I folded my arms.
"That sounds suspiciously legal."
"Don't get used to it."
We returned to the safe house before dawn.
I should have slept.
Instead I spread copies of the clinic records across the dining table and started comparing dates.
Gabriel watched from the doorway.
"You don't have to do this."
"Someone used my patients as a list. I absolutely have to do this."
"This is my war."
I looked up.
"Not anymore."
For once, he did not argue.
Around six, I found the pattern.
Every starred patient had received supplies from one of three donation batches.
All three had come through North Vale Medical Logistics.
I checked the lot numbers.
One antibiotic batch had been recalled months earlier for falsified manufacturing records.
Another contained saline purchased at triple market price through a charity reimbursement program.
The third included blood collection kits that St. Jude's had never ordered.
"This isn't just surveillance," I said.
Gabriel came closer.
"What is it?"
"Fraud. Medical supply fraud. Maybe insurance fraud too. Someone is using free clinics to move products, fake deliveries, and collect reimbursements."
Mateo joined us.
"How much money?"
"Across one clinic? Not enough to shoot people over. Across fifty clinics? Maybe."
Gabriel's expression changed.
"Victor controls our charitable logistics arm."
I looked at him.
"Your organization has a charitable logistics arm?"
"We fund clinics near the docks."
"Through Victor?"
"He oversees it."
That explained the North Vale connection.
Mateo swore under his breath.
Gabriel sat down slowly.
For the first time, he looked less angry than betrayed.
"How long?" he asked.
Mateo said nothing.
I looked at the records.
"At least eighteen months. Probably longer."
Gabriel's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered without speaking.
A man's voice came through the speaker.
"You should have died in the alley."
Gabriel's face went cold.
"Victor?"
A laugh.
Not Victor.
"Ask your nurse what happened to Dr. Jonathan Hayes."
My heart stopped.
Gabriel looked at me.
The caller continued.
"Then ask yourself why she really quit the downtown hospital."
The line went dead.
No one moved.
Gabriel lowered the phone.
"Norah."
My hands had gone numb.
Jonathan Hayes was my father.
He had been dead for seven years.
May you like
And until that moment, I had believed his death had nothing to do with Gabriel Rossy, Victor Morelli, or the bloody world I had just entered.
I was wrong.
