Chapter 6: Patient Seventeen
Chapter 6: Patient Seventeen
No one in the panic room spoke.
The words Patient 17: Lombardi echoed through my mind long after Gabriel finished speaking.
Patient.
Not victim.
Not survivor.
A patient was someone enrolled in a program.
Someone being studied.
Someone who belonged to a list.
I looked at Sebastian.
For the first time since meeting him, the man who ruled Chicago looked genuinely shaken.
His voice was almost inaudible.
"Find Reynolds."
Gabriel nodded immediately.
"He won't be in the city."
"I didn't ask where he was."
Sebastian's icy stare settled on his oldest friend.
"I asked you to find him."
Gabriel left without another word.
An hour later, I sat alone in the mansion's medical suite.
I couldn't stop thinking about Oliver.
I picked up my phone for what felt like the hundredth time.
No signal.
The estate's communications were still locked down.
A soft knock came at the door.
Sebastian rolled inside.
This time there were no guards.
No assistants.
Just him.
"I owe you an apology."
I looked up in surprise.
"For what?"
"For bringing you here against your will."
"You threatened the only thing that matters to me."
"I know."
He looked toward the rain-covered windows.
"I've spent so long controlling everyone around me that I forgot what fear feels like."
I folded my arms.
"I haven't."
A faint smile crossed his face.
"I can see that."
There was an awkward silence.
Finally, he asked,
"How bad is your son's condition?"
The question caught me off guard.
"Chronic asthma."
He listened quietly.
"Most days he's just a normal eight-year-old."
"And the bad days?"
I closed my eyes.
"The bad days feel like I'm watching him drown while standing beside him."
Sebastian said nothing.
He didn't need to.
Some pain didn't require answers.
Gabriel burst into the room twenty minutes later.
"We found Reynolds."
Sebastian straightened.
"Alive?"
"For now."
"Where?"
"He boarded a private jet an hour ago."
"Destination?"
Gabriel placed a tablet on the table.
"The flight plan says Switzerland."
I frowned.
"Why Switzerland?"
Gabriel enlarged the screen.
"The plane never landed."
"What?"
"It disappeared from radar over the Atlantic."
Sebastian didn't blink.
"That's impossible."
"It gets worse."
Gabriel opened another file.
"The aircraft exploded."
I stared at him.
"An accident?"
Gabriel slowly shook his head.
"No distress call."
"No emergency."
"No survivors."
Someone had silenced the only doctor who might have explained the MRI.
Before anyone could process the news, alarms rang again.
Not the security alarms.
Medical alarms.
A mansion employee ran into the room.
"Sir!"
"What is it?"
"The captured gunman."
Sebastian's expression darkened.
"What about him?"
"He's dead."
Gabriel frowned.
"How?"
The employee swallowed.
"The doctors say cardiac arrest."
I stood up immediately.
"I want to see him."
The body lay inside the mansion infirmary.
One glance told me something wasn't right.
His face wasn't blue.
His lips weren't pale.
His pupils were unnaturally wide.
I checked his neck.
There.
A tiny red puncture hidden behind his ear.
"What is it?" Gabriel asked.
"He didn't die from a heart attack."
I gently moved the man's collar.
"This."
Sebastian rolled closer.
"A needle mark?"
I nodded.
"Someone injected him."
"When?"
"Recently."
"But the room was guarded."
I looked around the infirmary.
Every window was sealed.
One door.
Two security guards.
No signs of forced entry.
Unless...
I turned toward the nurse standing nearby.
"Who examined him first?"
She blinked.
"I did."
"Who else touched him?"
"Our physician."
"What physician?"
She pointed toward the hallway.
"Dr. Harris."
Gabriel frowned.
"We don't have a Dr. Harris."
The nurse's face slowly lost its color.
"What?"
"The night doctor."
"There is no night doctor."
The room fell silent.
The nurse's clipboard slipped from her trembling fingers.
"I... I checked his identification."
Gabriel grabbed it.
The photo on the ID badge showed a smiling middle-aged physician.
The name read:
Dr. Michael Harris.
Gabriel immediately handed it to one of his men.
"Run facial recognition."
Thirty seconds later the answer came back.
"No records."
"No medical license."
"No driver's license."
"No passport."
The identity didn't exist.
The man who had walked into Sebastian's heavily guarded mansion posing as a doctor...
...had vanished.
That evening, I finally reached the hospital.
A nurse answered after the first ring.
"This is Emma Carter."
"Oh, Ms. Carter."
Relief washed through me.
"I'm calling about my son."
There was a pause.
Then confusion.
"Your son?"
"Oliver."
Another pause.
"I'm sorry..."
The nurse's voice became hesitant.
"...he was discharged this afternoon."
Every nerve in my body went cold.
"What are you talking about?"
"A family member signed him out."
"I never authorized that."
"We were told his uncle had permission."
"I don't have a brother."
Silence.
Then—
"Please hold."
The line clicked.
Thirty endless seconds passed.
When the nurse returned, her voice was shaking.
"Ms. Carter..."
"Where is my son?"
"We can't find the paperwork."
My hands began to tremble.
"Who took him?"
"We... we don't know."
The phone slipped from my fingers onto the marble floor.
Sebastian was beside me instantly.
"What happened?"
I couldn't breathe.
"They..."
The words barely came out.
"They took Oliver."
The room froze.
Gabriel slowly lowered his head.
Because they all understood the same thing at the same moment.
The attack on the mansion...
The murdered prisoner...
The fake doctor...
None of it had been the real objective.
The true target had never been Sebastian Lombardi.
It had always been my son.
Sebastian's face turned into something terrifyingly calm.
He picked up the phone, dialed a single number, and spoke only one sentence.
"Close every road leaving Chicago."
Then he ended the call and looked directly at me.
"I failed to protect the person you love most."
His voice was colder than ice.
"I won't fail twice."
At that exact moment, hundreds of miles away, Oliver opened his eyes inside a dimly lit room.
His wrists were free.
A blanket covered his shoulders.
Across from him sat an elderly man in a dark suit.
The man smiled kindly.
"You look just like your grandfather."
Oliver frowned.
"My grandfather is dead."
The old man's smile widened.
"That's what your mother believes."
He slid a faded photograph across the table.
Oliver picked it up.
In the picture stood a young woman holding a newborn baby.
The woman was unmistakably Emma.
But the man standing beside her...
Was not Oliver's father.
It was a twenty-two-year-old Sebastian Lombardi.
May you like
And written across the back of the photograph, in faded blue ink, were six chilling words:
"Protect Patient Seventeen's real heir."
