"Never!"
Now that his cover was blown, the assassin dropped the terrified doctor act entirely.
He laughed maniacally. "You federal lapdogs! I'll never let you through those doors!"
"I told you Dr. Grant was performing a highly sensitive surgery, but you just had to interfere!"
"You want to ruin everything!"
"You just want to watch him fail!"
The man raved like a psychotic fanboy of the surgeon, but Dane and Silas remained
entirely unfazed. They weren't buying his act for a second.
Without a flicker of emotion, Dane grabbed the assassin's wrist and brutally snapped the bones.
"You were supposed to be a doctor, weren't you?"
"I imagine never being able to hold a scalpel again won't bother you much,
considering you're nothing but a butcher anyway!"
"Aaaargh "
The assassin let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Standing a few feet away, Silas's mouth twitched. He immediately turned his head to stare at the blazing hallway.
The fire was getting intense. So much smoke. He couldn't see a thing!
Silas turned a completely blind eye as Dane proceeded to systematically dismantle the assassin.
By the time Dane was finished, the man was a crumpled, trembling mess on the floor. He couldn't even manage to curse them anymore; the sheer agony radiating from his shattered pressure points left him gasping for air.
Dane's interrogation methods were horrifyingly precise. He inflicted maximum, agonizing pain without leaving massive external trauma, targeting nerve clusters to paralyze his victim with agony.
"He's not going to open it. Even if he tried to order them, the guards inside are likely compromised too."
Silas's expression was grim.
The fact that Serenity Grand was a massive Syndicate stronghold, and the SSD had entirely missed it, was a catastrophic intelligence failure.
It showed exactly how deep the Syndicate had buried their roots.
The explosive firefight outside the doors was impossible to ignore.
But inside, the surgical team was operating with terrifying focus, completely ignoring the chaos.
The heavy breaching team finally arrived and took a power saw to the reinforced hinges. As the doors crashed inward, they realized the surgery hadn't stopped.
Dane shoved past the SWAT operators and sprinted toward the table.
"Who the hell are you?!"
The surgical staff jumped in terror.
Only Julian Grant kept his hands steady, suturing a line as if the armed men storming his OR didn't exist.
Dane stared at the figure lying unconscious on the operating table, his heart stopping in his chest.
"Get out! Who are you people? We are in the middle of a critical procedure!"
A surgical nurse, pale and trembling, screamed at them.
Dane didn't say a word. He just stared at the patient. The height Claire's bu
build were identical to
Land
he knew instantly-it wasn't her.
Silas rushed in right behind him, his heart pounding. "Who is this patient?"
"Who are you?!" The nurse was hysterical. If Dr. Grant hadn't remained so utterly calm, she would have hit the panic button.
"Federal agents. An armed terror cell has infiltrated this hospital. We are conducting a mandatory sweep. Step back."
Silas took one look at Dane's rigid posture and immediately deduced the girl on the table wasn't Claire.
If it had been Claire, Dane would have already torn the surgeon's head off.
The patient's face had already been entirely reconstructed. It was a terrifyingly complex procedure.
Especially considering the patient's face had originally been melted by third-degree burns.
"Apologies for the intrusion."
"Carry on."
Silas grabbed Dane's shoulder, trying to pull him away from the table.
They had confirmed Claire wasn't the one being carved up. They needed to get back out there and hunt.
But Dane refused to move.
His predatory gaze swept over every single person in the operating room.
"Get out immediately! You are compromising the sterile field!"
The nurse glared at him, her voice shrill with panic.
Dane ignored her completely, locking his eyes onto the surgeon who had yet to stop working.
"Where are they?"
Julian Grant didn't pause his
suturing. Agent, as you can see, am in the middle of a delicate procedure Whatever questions yout have, they will have to wait until I am finished."
"Dr. Grant, you didn't have this surgery scheduled today. You shoehorned a massive
reconstruction into your block at thes
last minute just to run interference for them."