The high-pitched whine of the electric cast saw sliced through the heavy silence of Trauma Room 2. White fiberglass dust exploded into the air like fine snowfall, settling onto the dark blue linoleum floor.

A chill, colder than any sterile operating room, shot straight down my spine.

"If you lay a single finger on my dog—" I gasped, rising from my chair so fast it tipped over onto the floor.

"Trace locked!" the FBI technician yelled, pointing at the map. "He’s at 742 Elm Street, Apartment 4B! That's her home address!"

"Tactical units, move!" Vance ordered into his radio, pulling his sidearm from his holster. "Sarah, stay here!"

"Not a chance!" I shouted, grabbing my jacket from the chair. "Buster is in that apartment!"

"Doctor, it’s a setup!" Vance yelled, grabbing my arm. "He called you from your own landline specifically to draw you out! He wants you there!"

"Then let's give him what he wants," I said, my eyes blazing with furious resolve. "He thinks I’m just an ER doctor who works with bandages and IVs. He has no idea what I’m capable of when someone threatens my family."

Ten minutes later, three black unmarked SUVs tore through the quiet residential streets of my neighborhood, pulling up to the curb half a block down from my apartment building.

The night was pitch black, rainy, and slick. SWAT officers clad in dark body armor dismounted silently, forming a tactical stack at the side entrance of the building.

"Thermal imaging shows one individual inside Apartment 4B," the tactical leader reported, looking at a small handheld screen. "He's pacing near the kitchen area. Target appears armed."

"We breach through the front," Vance whispered, checking his weapon. "Sarah, you remain inside the armored vehicle until the perimeter is clear."

"Fine," I lied, nodding as I sat in the backseat of the SUV.

The moment Vance and his team crept into the building's lobby, I reached beneath the driver's seat of the police vehicle, pulling out a heavy tactical flashlight and an emergency trauma medical kit containing a high-dose vial of Succinylcholine—a powerful neuromuscular blocking agent used for rapid-sequence intubation. In small doses, it paralyses muscles instantly; in large doses, it stops breathing within seconds.

I drew 10 milligrams of the liquid into a heavy-gauge syringe, capped it, and slipped it into my sleeve.

I slipped out of the vehicle and moved quietly through the dark alley toward the rear fire escape of my building—a path I had walked a thousand times.

I climbed the iron stairs without making a sound, reaching the kitchen window of my fourth-floor apartment.

Inside, through the glass, I saw Daniel. He was wearing a dark jacket, holding a gun in one hand and a glass of my scotch in the other. Buster, my golden retriever, was whimpering softly, locked inside his wooden crate in the corner of the dining room.

Daniel walked toward the window, looking out into the rain.