Chapter 5 - The Line in the Linoleum
I didn't wait for them to reach the threshold.
As the lead fixer raised his hand to turn the brass handle of room 412, I pulled the door open with a sharp, violent yank.
The man in the gray suit stumbled forward, his hand grasping thin air before his eyes locked onto mine. Behind him, the security guard froze, the heavy bolt cutters clattering loudly against the waxed hospital linoleum.
“State property, gentlemen,” I said, my voice cutting through the quiet corridor with the cold, absolute authority of a commanding officer issuing a lockdown order. “Turn around and put your hands against the wall before I forget I’m currently on domestic leave.”
The fixer recovered his balance quickly, sneering as he adjusted his tie. “Sergeant Hayes, I presume? You’re entirely out of your depth here. My firm represents Erikson Holdings. We have emergency probate orders signed by a circuit judge authorizing immediate custodial transfer of the minor child—!”
“You have forged paperwork and six minutes before the armed state detail stationed downstairs responds to the stairwell alarm I just triggered,” I interrupted, stepping squarely into the doorway, blocking his view of Sophia and Leo.
Across the hallway, the elevator bell chimed brightly.
The doors slid open, revealing Detective Harris and two armed state troopers with their weapons drawn and ready.
“Hold it right there! Federal and state authority—hands where we can see them!” Harris bellowed, his voice echoing off the tile walls like a thunderclap.
The fixer’s face drained of color in an instant. He looked from Harris’s drawn weapon back to me, realizing too late that the trap hadn't been sprung on us—it had been waiting for them the entire time.
As the troopers swarmed forward, slamming the fixer against the wall and slapping cuffs onto his wrists, Harris walked up to me, shaking his head with a grim smile.
“Good catch, Sergeant. That’s the third corporate clean-up crew your mother’s legal team has dispatched tonight.”
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I holstered my weapon, exhaling a long, slow breath as I looked back into the room where Sophia was holding our sleeping son safely in her arms.
“Let them keep sending them, Marcus,” I said coldly, watching as the fixers were hauled down the corridor toward the elevators. “Because tomorrow morning, we’re going to dismantle the entire empire from the top down.”
