Chapter 5 - The Night Watch
By three o'clock in the morning, the house on the cliff had become a tomb of nervous waiting.
Downstairs in the grand library, twelve of the world’s most respected medical minds were sitting under the guard of four armed men with submachine guns, their coats searched, their personal belongings turned inside out on the billiard table.
Upstairs in the master bedroom, the atmosphere was dead silent.
The rain continued to hammer against the heavy glass windows, driving sheets of gray water against the dark ocean below. The only light in the room came from the amber footwell lamps and the steady, green glow of the cardiac monitor.
Maya sat in the high-backed leather chair, her posture straight, her dark eyes moving methodically between the screen and the IV lines running into Vincent’s neck and arm.
Every fifteen minutes, she stood up, walked to the head of the bed, and inspected the drip chamber on the primary saline bag. She checked the color of the tubing, ensured the injection ports remained capped with sterile blue rubber seals, and verified that the infusion pump was delivering exactly one hundred and twenty-five milliliters per hour.
Vincent had slept for two hours, his breathing deep and unlabored.
At twenty minutes past three, his eyes slowly opened.
He did not look at the ceiling or the expensive paintings on the wall. He turned his head slowly toward the left side of the bed, where Maya was sitting with a small notebook in her lap, tracking his fluid balance by hand.
“Water,” Vincent rasped.
His voice was terrifyingly low—a rough, dry scraping sound, like stone sliding over sand. It was the first time Maya had heard him speak.
Maya stood up immediately. She picked up a plastic cup containing ice chips and a small sponge swab from the side table. She dipped the sponge into the water and stepped closer to the bed.
“Don't drink too fast,” Maya said softly, leaning over him. She gently touched the wet sponge to his cracked, dry lips. “Your swallowing reflex is still weak from the tube.”
Vincent squeezed his eyes shut as the cool moisture touched his mouth, soaking up the water with a low, ragged sigh.
When he opened his eyes again, the clarity in them was absolute. The fever was gone. The toxic haze of hyperkalemia had cleared completely from his mind.
“You...” Vincent whispered, his throat working hard to produce the sound. “You’re the cleaner.”
“My name is Maya,” she said, dipping the sponge again and dampening his lower lip.
Vincent’s dark eyes tracked her hand, taking in the small scar on her index finger, the neat black button on her faded tunic, and the calm, steady rhythm of her breath.
“They were... letting me die,” Vincent said, not as a question, but as a statement of fact he had already calculated.
“They didn't know,” Maya answered honestly. “Or eleven of them didn't know. Someone added potassium to your line. Your doctors thought your heart was giving out from the blast shock.”
Vincent let out a faint, bitter breath through his nose. “Fools.”
“They’re specialists,” Maya offered gently. “They look at big theories. They don't look at the trash.”
Vincent’s mouth twitched slightly—the faint, distant ghost of a cold smile that didn't reach his eyes. “You looked at the trash.”
“I was cleaning the baseboard,” Maya said simply. “The ampoule rolled out under my knee. It didn't belong in the cardiac bin.”
Vincent lay silent for several seconds, his dark eyes staring into hers with an intensity that made her chest tighten. Even strapped to a mechanical bed, surrounded by tubes, with seven stitches across his ribs, the sheer force of his presence was overwhelming. He was a man who lived in the dark, who controlled millions with a phone call, and who had survived a car bomb only to be saved by a girl earning eighteen dollars an hour.
“My uncle,” Vincent rasped softly. “Where is he?”
“Downstairs,” Maya replied. “He’s holding the doctors in the library. He’s searching their things.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed slightly, a subtle shift in his expression that sent a chill through Maya’s spine.
“Dominic...” Vincent murmured, his voice so quiet it was almost swallowed by the hum of the oxygen machine. “Dominic locked them in the library?”
“Yes. He said nobody leaves until we know who brought the vial in.”
Vincent slowly moved his right hand across the white bedsheet. His fingers were still weak, pale, and trembling slightly, but he reached out until his fingertips touched the edge of Maya’s sleeve.
“Maya,” Vincent whispered, his eyes locking onto hers with terrifying focus. “Listen to me.”
Maya leaned closer, her ear six inches from his mouth. “I’m listening.”
“Dominic... didn't lock them in the library to find the killer,” Vincent rasped, his breath hot against her cheek. “He locked them in... so none of them could tell the city... that I am still alive.”
Maya’s blood turned to ice. She slowly lifted her head, looking into Vincent’s dark, deadly eyes.
“He told the guards... the announcement was being prepared,” Maya remembered, her voice dropping into a frantic whisper as the pieces fell together in her mind. “Dr. Vance said your uncle was already notifying the family.”
May you like
Vincent’s fingers tightened around the fabric of her sleeve with surprising, sudden strength.
“My uncle... paid for the bomb,” Vincent whispered cold and hard. “And when the bomb failed... he bought a vial of potassium.”
