Chapter 4 - TEN MINUTES TO CHOOSE
The slow clap continued.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
The sound came closer.
Dominic moved in front of Gabriel.
Elias stepped toward the passage.
Laya gripped the phone.
“Who is that?”
Neither brother answered.
The fifth clap stopped.
A man's voice floated through the hidden corridor.
“Doctor Hastings.”
Laya's blood turned cold.
The voice was familiar.
Not personally.
Professionally.
She had heard it hundreds of times.
Calm.
Authoritative.
The voice of someone accustomed to giving orders and expecting obedience.
Dr. Arthur Pendleton.
Chief of Surgery at Chicago Mercy.
Laya stared at the phone.
“No.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“You know him.”
“He's my chief.”
Elias's expression darkened.
“Then your chief is much more interesting than you realized.”
The hidden door opened.
Pendleton walked inside.
He wore a dark overcoat and carried no visible weapon.
That somehow made him more frightening.
He looked at Laya.
“Dr. Hastings.”
She couldn't speak.
Pendleton sighed.
“I had hoped you would be less difficult.”
Gabriel stared at him.
“You.”
Pendleton smiled.
“You're difficult to kill, Gabriel.”
“Why?”
“Because you've spent twenty years making enemies.”
“And you?”
“I spent twenty years making friends.”
Dominic raised his gun.
Pendleton lifted one hand.
Three red laser dots appeared on Dominic's chest.
Snipers.
Laya's heart hammered.
“Lower it,” Gabriel said.
Dominic obeyed.
Pendleton looked pleased.
“Still giving orders from a hospital bed.”
Gabriel leaned against the wall.
“You shot me.”
“I arranged it.”
“Why?”
“Because the city is changing.”
Pendleton walked farther into the room.
“Your father built an empire. You inherited it. But you made the mistake of believing an empire belongs to the man who controls it.”
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
“Who does it belong to?”
“To whoever controls the information.”
His eyes moved to Laya.
She instinctively stepped back.
Pendleton smiled.
“And she has more information than anyone realizes.”
Laya frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your patient list.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“You do.”
He stepped closer.
“Three months ago, a patient arrived at Mercy with a gunshot wound.”
Laya's face changed.
She remembered.
A young man.
Twenty-six.
He had died before sunrise.
Pendleton continued.
“You documented everything.”
“That's my job.”
“You documented a tattoo.”
Laya remembered.
A small black symbol near the patient's collarbone.
A circle split by a vertical line.
Pendleton watched her.
“You copied it into your notes.”
“I photograph unusual injuries for medical records.”
“You didn't photograph that one.”
Laya went still.
Pendleton smiled.
“You drew it.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“What symbol?”
“I don't know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Pendleton's voice softened.
“That symbol is the mark of a network that has been moving money through Chicago for fifteen years.”
Elias frowned.
“And you found it on a dead courier.”
Pendleton nodded.
“Exactly.”
Gabriel looked at Laya.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I didn't know what it meant.”
“Now you do.”
Pendleton laughed.
“You still don't understand.”
He reached into his coat.
Dominic raised his weapon again.
Pendleton slowly removed a photograph.
He held it up.
It showed Laya leaving Mercy.
Then another.
Laya entering her apartment.
Another.
Laya driving her Honda.
Another.
Laya standing outside the hospital with coffee.
Her stomach dropped.
“How long have you been watching me?”
“Since the night you treated Gabriel.”
“But you knew before that.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Pendleton's expression changed.
“Because you were never random.”
Gabriel stared.
“What does that mean?”
Pendleton looked at him.
“Ask your father.”
Gabriel's face went pale.
“My father is dead.”
“His body is.”
The words landed like a bomb.
Elias stepped forward.
“You're lying.”
Pendleton smiled.
“Am I?”
Gabriel's voice became dangerously quiet.
“What did you do with him?”
“Nothing.”
“Then who has him?”
Pendleton didn't answer.
Instead, he looked at Laya.
“Your mother knew.”
Laya froze.
“What did you say?”
“Your mother knew Gabriel's father.”
“My mother died when I was nine.”
“I know.”
“You're lying.”
“No.”
Pendleton's voice was almost gentle.
“Your mother worked at Mercy before you were born. She was a nurse.”
Laya shook her head.
“My mother was a school secretary.”
“That's what you were told.”
Elias stared at Gabriel.
Gabriel stared at Pendleton.
“You knew,” Gabriel said.
Pendleton smiled.
“Your father told me to keep her hidden.”
Laya felt the room tilt.
“Why?”
Pendleton looked directly at her.
“Because twenty-nine years ago, your mother stole something from the Mercer family.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Gabriel's eyes widened.
“The black ledger.”
Pendleton nodded.
“The one your father spent the last years of his life trying to find.”
Laya whispered, “My mother stole a book?”
“A book that could destroy half the people who run Illinois.”
She looked at Gabriel.
He was staring at her differently now.
Not as a doctor.
Not as a hostage.
As if she had suddenly become part of a story he had been living his entire life.
“Where is it?” Gabriel asked.
Pendleton smiled.
“That is why she was chosen.”
Laya's voice shook.
“Chosen for what?”
Pendleton took one final step.
“To lead us to it.”
A distant alarm began to sound.
Pendleton glanced at his watch.
“You have seven minutes.”
“Seven minutes for what?”
He looked between the two brothers.
“To decide which one survives.”
Then he pointed at Gabriel.
“Because if you choose him, Elias dies.”
He pointed at Elias.
“And if you choose Elias, Gabriel dies.”
Laya stared at both men.
“I don't understand.”
Pendleton smiled.
“You will.”
The hidden door slammed shut behind him.
And the phone in Laya's hand began counting down.
06:59.
06:58.
06:57.
Laya could not move.
The voice continued.
“I don't know how old you are now.”
A pause.
“But if you're hearing this, you survived.”
Laya's eyes filled with tears.
She knew that voice.
Even after twenty-two years.
Even through static.
Her mother.
Helena.
“Laya, listen carefully. Do not trust anyone who tells you the Mercer family is your enemy.”
Gabriel stared at the screen.
Helena continued.
“Some of them are.”
A breath.
“Some of them are not.”
Laya wiped her cheek.
“Mom?”
The recording did not respond.
Instead, a second file opened.
A photograph appeared.
Helena stood in the Mercer mansion beside Gabriel's father.
And beside them was a teenage Gabriel.
Laya stared.
Her mother was holding something.
A black leather book.
Gabriel saw it too.
“The ledger.”
Laya shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“That isn't the ledger.”
“How do you know?”
“Because my mother had that photograph in our apartment.”
Gabriel turned toward her.
“You remember?”
“Yes.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That the man beside her was a friend.”
Gabriel's expression darkened.
“That was my father.”
Laya stared.
“She knew him.”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
“I knew your mother.”
“When?”
“When I was sixteen.”
Laya's heart hammered.
“You knew her before I was born.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know me?”
He didn't answer immediately.
Then:
“Yes.”
The room went silent.
Laya felt betrayed.
“How?”
“Your mother brought you here once.”
“Why?”
“She needed help.”
“From your family?”
“From my father.”
Laya looked at the screen.
Helena's recording continued.
“If Gabriel is there, listen to him.”
Laya turned.
The recording said:
“He was never meant to inherit the empire.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“He was meant to destroy it.”
The screen went black.
Laya stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know.”
“You're lying.”
“No.”
“Then remember.”
Gabriel's expression tightened.
“I was sixteen.”
“You remember enough to know my mother.”
“Yes.”
“Then remember everything.”
A sound came from beneath the stairs.
Three knocks.
Gabriel turned.
Elias whispered, “That's impossible.”
“What?”
“No one knows that passage.”
Gabriel moved toward the stairs.
Laya followed.
He stopped her.
“Stay back.”
“No.”
“Laya.”
“My mother left that message for me.”
She stepped beside him.
“I'm coming.”
He looked at her.
Then nodded.
They opened the hidden door.
A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
At the bottom was a steel room.
The walls were covered with photographs.
Laya's childhood.
Her mother.
Gabriel as a teenager.
Victor Mercer.
Pendleton.
And one photograph that made Laya stop breathing.
It showed her mother holding two newborn babies.
Two.
Not one.
Laya stared.
“Who is the other baby?”
Gabriel stepped beside her.
His face went pale.
“I don't know.”
Elias looked at the photograph.
Then at Helena's handwriting beneath it.
“Lena.”
Laya whispered the name.
The lights came on.
And a woman's voice spoke from a hidden speaker.
“Hello, sister.”
The timer continued to fall.
06:12.
06:11.
06:10.
Laya forced herself to breathe.
“Why give me a choice if you've already decided the outcome?”
Pendleton answered from the speaker.
“Because people reveal themselves when they think someone else is about to die.”
Elias looked at her.
“Don't choose.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
Gabriel's eyes remained on her.
“Whatever he asks, refuse.”
Pendleton laughed.
“You see? That's the problem with Gabriel. He thinks refusal is power.”
Laya stepped toward the speaker.
“No. I think evidence is power.”
A pause.
Then Pendleton said:
“You really are your mother's daughter.”
The sentence made Laya stop.
Gabriel noticed.
“What did he mean?”
“I don't know.”
But she did.
Somewhere inside her memory was a room.
A red door.
A piano.
A woman's hand.
And a boy telling her to keep a secret.
The countdown reached 05:59.
Then the speaker went silent.
A new message appeared on the phone.
ASK GABRIEL WHAT HAPPENED TO HELENA HASTINGS.
Laya turned slowly.
Gabriel saw the message.
His face changed.
“Who is Helena?”
Gabriel didn't answer.
May you like
Elias did.
“Her mother.”
