His Mafia Prince
Chapter 226: Before All Goes To Hell

Chapter 226: Before All Goes To Hell

(SASHA)

"You sure know a lot about it for someone who doesn’t have a clue who’s coming for him," Darla snaps, but she’s already moving to check the hallway.

"Fucking finally," she sighs, as the alarm cuts down in volume. "Move it," she shouts down the hall to someone, and a moment later the nurse arrives back, breathless and flustered, with a wheelchair.

Marco pushes Tyler and Burgess aside and helps me himself. Even all torn up like he is, he’s stronger than the two of them—and he’s had years of experience dragging me around.

"Just like the old days," I say to him, and he chuckles, then hooks my arm around his neck, grabbing onto my hand.

He hoists me clumsily by the waist. I get to my feet and we stagger towards the wheelchair. I black out for a few seconds from the pain, but when my head stops spinning and the nausea abates, I’m in the chair, and the nurse is propping my bare feet up on the footrest.

"Marco," I gasp out, trying to ignore the pain, and point.

"Drawer."

"He wants his gun," Tyler says, running over to the nightstand.

"Hell, no," Burgess says at once, pulling out her own sidearm and taking aim at me.

"Freeze!"

Everyone else in the room, including Darla, ignores her. Tyler pulls out my Sig Sauer, checks that the mag is full, and hands it to me before taking his own, small-caliber gun out of the drawer as well.

"I’ll take that," Marco says, and Tyler hands it over gratefully. I’m grateful, too. My husband is a better shot these days, but he’s not trained for this kind of thing.

Darla says nothing about our sudden weaponizing. "What now?" is all she asks.

Burgess is aiming her firearm at Marco now, as though she doesn’t think I’m much of a threat. She’s not wrong. I can barely keep the gun in my hand. At least Marco has a hold on his. "Detective Burgess?" I ask. "Are you running this show, or not?"

She gives me a contemptuous, annoyed glare, but lowers her gun. "We hole up in some lockable room here in the ward," she says shortly.

"Can’t risk moving around the hospital. We don’t know where these people are—if they even exist."

"No," Tyler says, and I’m so damn proud to hear him so cool, calm and collected.

"They know the room number. They have to. And even if they don’t, there’s not that many private rooms. We stay here, we might as well all shoot each other right now."

Darla gives a little squeak.

Burgess looks at her and seems to be regretfully remembering her duty of public care. "Is there any other way out of here, through to the main hospital, apart from the entrance by the desk?" she asks.

Darla’s attention snaps back. She shakes her head. "N-no...but if we take the elevator down to the basement area, there’s a long service tunnel that the cleaning staff and caterers used to use sometimes. It leads back up to the road. Hasn’t been in operation since the extensions to the hospital twenty years ago, but it’s still there."

"They’ll be waiting for us," Marco says.

"I’m not sure about that, sir," Darla says. "The doors at the end to get out need a high-level pass to open, and, well, I think Mr. D’Amato’s security people have been watching it, along with our own hospital security."

Darla looks Marco right in the face when she replies. I like that about her. "Plus there are rooms that come off the tunnel. We could find somewhere to hide." She’s smart, too. MIles will have men watching the doors. They might already be dead, of course. But hiding down there is the best chance we have.

"Let’s go," I say, and Tyler gets behind me to push.

"If this is some setup to get me alone in a fucking basement—" Burgess starts, cutting off when I snort.

Marco walks right past her to scan the hall outside again.

"We’re good to go. Darla, honey, you come up here with me, tell me which way."

Darla scurries to his side, peering fearfully around him. Tyler starts pushing me forward. As we pass Burgess, I say,

If you want to stay here, Detective, you’re more than welcome. But if you come with us, we’ll protect you if you protect us. You have my word." I don’t have the energy to turn around and watch her make up her mind, but I do hear her muttered curse, and her footsteps bringing up the rear. I’m glad she’s decided to join us.

She seems well-trained if nothing else. And I’m really not sure how accurate my shooting will be right now.

"It’s left and then right at the corner," Darla says to Marco. "The old elevators are around there." Marco puts her against the wall, and goes ahead to check the corner. Burgess pushes past Tyler and me to stand guard in the hallway facing the other way.

On the way through the door, Tyler bangs the wheelchair into the doorframe and I hiss with pain.

"I’m sorry, oh God, sorry, baby," he gasps, kneeling down next to me. I manage to smile at him. "Don’t be sorry, angel. Just try to drive straight, eh?"

"Let’s move it," Burgess warns. Tyler backs the wheelchair up a little and makes it through the door. We make it to the corner, then into the elevator.

It takes me that long to get my vision clear. I’m shivering, the pain making me cold, but I clench my teeth together and force myself to keep still. If we’re going to get out of this alive, I will need to shoot straight and true.

The elevator goes down slowly, and when it opens up there’s a blank cement wall opposite, with a cool, shadowy corridor stretching either side.

Without speaking, Darla points the direction she wants us to go, and Marco crouches and ducks his head around the side to check it out, while Burgess takes the other view.

"Clear," she murmurs.

"Let’s do this," Marco says, standing up again. Tyler is extra careful wheeling me out of the elevator and into the hallway, although I’d rather he went for speed rather than worrying about my pain. But I say nothing. It’s not the time to bicker.

At the end of the long tunnel, which slopes gently upwards the whole way, we can see that it gets lighter. The overhead lights are mostly off, though every now and then one is still flickering—enough to light the way.

There are enough doors set in both sides of the wall that it slows us down, having to stop and check each one. I can hear Tyler panting a little as he has to push harder at the wheelchair up the sloping floor. I have my pain under control—as much as I possibly can, anyway—and I’m confident that I’ll be able to defend Tyler if we run into any undesirables.

Darla is moving briskly now, and I can see she wants to run, but is smart enough to stay behind Marco instead of making a break for it. Burgess is still on edge, no doubt imagining some ambush for her.

But so far, so good.

We get about halfway before it all goes to hell.