Chapter 10 - HOPEWELL
Hopewell Medical Retreat looked like a luxury hotel hidden behind pine trees.
Underneath it was a prison.
Gabriel drove through a maintenance gate while Victor’s remaining men cut the power. Emergency lights flickered across the grounds.
Sadie wore stolen scrubs over her vest.
Victor leaned against the van wall, pale from blood loss.
“You should stay here,” she said.
“That sounds familiar.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I only need to stand long enough.”
They entered through a storm tunnel beneath the west wing.
At the first security door, Gabriel used a code stolen from Mick.
The door opened onto a white hallway.
Behind glass walls were six private medical rooms. Wealthy patients slept under armed guard while machines kept failing bodies alive.
Sadie saw names she recognized—judges, businessmen, a former police commissioner.
“They bought organs,” she said.
Victor’s expression turned cold.
“They bought people.”
A guard spotted them.
Gabriel fired first.
Alarms screamed.
Victor’s men moved down the hallway while Sadie followed signs toward SURGICAL LEVEL B.
They reached an elevator.
The doors opened.
Dr. Bell stood inside with two armed guards.
“Sadie,” he said, almost kindly. “Your brother asked for you.”
Victor raised his weapon.
Bell pushed a button.
A live image appeared on the wall monitor.
Sam lay unconscious on an operating table.
“If my heart stops,” Bell said, “the surgical team begins the extraction immediately.”
“You’re lying,” Sadie said.
Bell held up a small control device.
“Am I?”
Victor lowered his pistol.
Bell’s guards disarmed him.
Sadie did the same.
Bell looked at Victor’s wound.
“Anthony will be disappointed. He wanted to speak with you before you died.”
They were marched deeper underground.
At the final room, a glass wall separated them from the operating theater.
Sam lay inside with tubes in both arms.
Sadie pounded on the glass.
“Sam!”
His eyes opened slightly.
“Sadie?”
“I’m here. Don’t be scared.”
A door opened behind them.
An old man entered in a motorized wheelchair.
Anthony Costello was thin, pale, and connected to an oxygen tank. But his eyes were sharp.
Victor stared at the father he had buried six years earlier.
“You killed my mother,” he said.
Anthony smiled.
“Your mother was weak.”
Victor lunged, but the guards held him.
Anthony turned to Sadie.
“Your father caused a great deal of trouble.”
“You burned him alive.”
“He should have understood the value of silence.”
Sadie’s hands curled into fists.
Anthony moved closer to the glass.
“Your brother can save my life. You should be proud.”
“He could die.”
“All useful things eventually get used up.”
Victor broke free and struck one guard, but Bell activated the control in his hand.
Inside the operating room, a machine released medication into Sam’s IV.
Sam’s eyes closed.
“Stop!” Sadie screamed.
Bell looked at the monitor.
May you like
“The harvesting process has begun.”
Then Sam’s heart monitor changed from a steady rhythm to one long, unbroken tone.
