Greg and his men eased around a corner on the fourth floor. The shootout had left one of his men injured and the perpetrators retreating.
Now they pursued them.
He used two fingers and motioned his men forward then followed closely behind. The hallway was empty.
Ping, ping, ping.
Shots were being fired!
Greg’s heart raced. The sound came from the wing with Mary and Ericka. He ran toward the sound, not heeding warnings blaring in his head.
He rounded the corner. Bullet holes littered the elevator’s closed doors. The stairwell door was just swinging shut.
“They’re going after Ericka and her patient. We have to stop them before they reach the first floor!”
Single file the men flooded the stairwell. Shots rang out from below and they threw themselves back against the wall. Greg and his men bent over the railing and fired shots in between the perpetrators’ fire.
Sweat beaded Greg’s brow, and he wiped it away before it ran into his eyes. He was getting too old for this. He disliked getting shot at. It had happened way too often.
The tactical team waited for a pause and then leaned over the railing and let off a few more rounds of their own as cover fire. Then they continued to descend. Only three more floors and he would reach Ericka, but by then it could be too late.
He’d waited too long to tell her how he felt, how he’d always felt. If he ever got another chance, he would just tell her.
Maybe…
Right now, all he could do was pray she had a plan. He couldn’t help her. She was in God’s hands now.
****
When the elevator doors slid open, she was still without a firm plan. She’d racked her brain for an idea of how to get across the large, empty lobby without getting shot. The second floor had a balcony made of glass. If their pursuers knew that then Ericka and Mary would be without cover.
Think, Ericka, think. There has to be something you can do.
As the doors slid open, her heart almost gave out when she saw who waited.
“Come on! I have a car outside.”
Joey.
He raced into the lobby and grabbed the handles of his mother’s wheelchair. Ericka walked backward behind them, her gun ready. The glint of a gun peeked through the opening stairwell door. She let go two shots. A guy dropped, blocking the path of his friends.
Within seconds and without hesitation they pushed their friend aside and started to come through.
“We gotta move!” Her heart was thumping so loud in her ears she couldn’t hear if Joey replied.
Glass shattered behind her, removing the doors before they reached them. Joey opened the empty frame and rolled his mother through. He hadn’t even flinched when the bullets started flying. Had he been in a fire fight before? It seemed likely with his family’s history.
Ericka laid cover fire as Joey secured Mary in the front seat of the sedan. He ran around the hood and climbed behind the wheel.
“Come on!”
She was ready to tell him to leave her when Greg appeared behind the assailants. Taking fire on both sides, the assailants began to seek cover in the lobby behind vinyl seats.
While they were occupied, Ericka dove into the back seat of the car and Joey sped away. Now she had two new problems, communicating with Greg, which she would figure out later. For now, she just needed to survive Joey’s driving.
****
Greg surveyed the aftermath of the fire fight. Clearly, they were after Mary Demarco. Fortunately, they’d failed, mostly due to Ericka’s quick actions.
The men hidden behind the seats had stood with their hands up fairly quickly after Greg and his officers burst through the stairwell door.
Now about ten men were in handcuffs and awaiting transport.
Greg wasn’t sure why they had decided to bomb the hospital in their attempt to get to Mary. The only thing he could reason was that they had planned to use her as leverage to coerce Big Tony to do their bidding.
Still, there had to be easier ways to reach her than using a bomb. Maybe they had other reasons for that choice.
If they knew that he’d been working with law enforcement this entire time, maybe they wanted to make him watch Mary die as punishment.
There were so many possibilities, and he had no answers. Until they found Big Tony they were in the dark. No one was talking. Not any of his informants and not the family.
The family was just acting scared. Keeping their mother hidden to almost the point of death. Normal people didn’t do that unless they had a reason to be afraid.
But he was pretty sure that Big Tony had kept his desire to go legit and the fact that he was helping the government to make it happen, a secret from his children. Greg was almost positive that he had only told Mary and no one else.
But maybe he was wrong.
He stepped over a large pile of broken glass. Blood coated one of the pieces. No one in the men he saw had been cut.
His heart hammered in his chest.
Ericka…
He ran his hands through his hair. He hoped Ericka knew how much danger she was in. She’d rescued the wife of a mob boss and left with her and her son. If she wasn’t physically hurt now, she might be in the future.
The hunt wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.