Chapter 5 - The Voice from the Cloud
The satellite phone emitted a low, electronic hum as it searched for a connection through the thirty feet of brick and concrete above them. Fiona stood close to the boiler’s pilot light, her fingers shaking so violently she could barely press the pre-programmed speed dial button marked with a single silver C.
The line clicked twice, a static-filled hollow sound that seemed to carry the entire distance across the stormy Midwest, before a voice cut through the noise.
"Marco," Dominic Costello said. His voice was a low, frozen rasp, stripped of any warmth, carrying the deep, vibrating fatigue of a man who had spent forty-eight hours negotiating a turf treaty with the New York syndicates. "The flight is grounded until five AM. What’s happening at the house?"
"Mr. Costello," Fiona said, her voice catching in her throat before she forced it into submission. "It’s Fiona. Fiona Jenkins."
There was a sudden, absolute silence on the other end of the line. Fiona could hear the distant, high-pitched whine of an executive jet engine idling in the background, but Dominic’s breathing was completely still.
"Fiona," he said, his voice dropping an octave, becoming softer but infinitely more dangerous. "Why do you have Marco’s line? Where is Arthur?"
"Arthur is safe, he's hiding," Fiona said, speaking as quickly as she could while keeping her medical precision. "But you need to listen to me, Dominic. Your son isn't sick. Victoria and Dr. Reed have been poisoning him. They built a device inside his orthopedic pillow—dozens of rusted needles coated with succinylcholine. Every time he went to sleep, they were paralyzing his nervous system."
She heard a sound over the static—a low, animal grunt that sounded like a man being stabbed in the ribs. Then, the sound of glass shattering as Dominic's hand closed around a tumbler or a phone screen on the other end.
"Are you sure, Fiona?" he asked. The question wasn't a denial; it was the clinical validation of a kingpin who was already constructing a execution list in his mind.
"I am a trauma nurse, Dominic," Fiona said, her eyes burning with tears as she looked at the rusted needles in her hand. "I’ve got the wounds on his neck, I’ve got the blood on the sheets, and I’ve got the needles right here in my pocket. Victoria knows I found them. Her guards are hunting me through the basement right now. They have orders to stage an overdose."
"Marco," Dominic’s voice boomed through the small speaker, no longer a whisper, but a command that could shake the foundations of the city.
Marco stepped closer, taking the phone from Fiona’s hand. "I’m here, Don Dominic."
"You take the nurse and you take my boy, and you go to the secure vault beneath the old carriage house," Dominic ordered. "There are three men from the old guard stationed at the western gate—Gennaro and his sons. They don't take orders from Victoria. You tell them the code word Whitechapel. They will clear the perimeter. If anyone—anyone, including my wife—tries to cross that line before I get there, you put them in the dirt."
"Understood, Don," Marco said, his face hardening into an expression of grim satisfaction. "What about the doctor?"
"Leave the doctor for me," Dominic said. The line went dead with a sharp, digital click.
Marco shoved the phone back into his pocket and turned to Fiona. "All right, nurse. We’ve got twenty minutes before Victoria realizes I lied about the conservatory. We need to get the kid from the wardrobe and move through the coal tunnel to the stables. Can you run?"
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Fiona looked down at her torn stockings and her damp nursing shoes. She didn't feel the pain in her fingers or the exhaustion of the twenty-four-hour shift anymore. She felt only the cold, sharp clarity of the emergency room during a multi-car pileup.
"Lead the way," she said.
