Chapter 13 - The Last Stand
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Peace is often a fragile, delicate bridge that must be crossed with vigilance before it becomes permanent.
Three weeks after our dinner at the diner, I was walking through the hospital’s multi-level parking garage after completing a grueling twelve-hour night shift.
The damp morning mist hung thick between the concrete pillars of the third floor, muffling the distant sounds of city traffic.
I had my car keys in my hand and my stethoscope slung securely inside my shoulder bag, thinking only of my warm bed.
Suddenly, the sharp click of a metallic hammer cocking back echoed through the empty concrete structure.
“Turn around very slowly, you thieving little tramp,” a raspy, venomous voice snarled from the shadows behind a support pillar.
I froze in my tracks, my breath catching in my throat as I turned my body around with deliberate, careful slowness.
Vivienne Ashford stood twenty feet away from me, looking completely unrecognizable from the pristine socialite of the Santoro banquet.
She had been released on a five-hundred-thousand-dollar cash bail the previous afternoon pending her federal trial.
Her designer trench coat was wrinkled and stained, her blonde hair was matted and unwashed, and her eyes were bloodshot with manic delirium.
In her trembling right hand, she held a small, black snub-nosed revolver pointed directly at my chest.
“Vivienne,” I spoke softly, using the calm, de-escalating tone we were trained to employ with violent psychiatric patients in crisis.
“Lower the weapon, Vivienne; this isn't going to fix anything for you,” I said, keeping my hands visible at waist level.
“You destroyed my entire life!” Vivienne screamed, her voice cracking and echoing hysterically against the concrete ceiling.
“I was going to be the queen of the Santoro empire! I was going to have everything!”
“And you took it all away from me with your stupid, pathetic little silver pin!” she sobbed, taking two erratic steps forward.
“I didn't take your life, Vivienne; your father’s greed and your own choices took it,” I said with steady, unyielding calm.
“If you pull that trigger, you will spend the rest of your natural life in a maximum-security prison cell.”
“I don't care anymore!” she shrieked, her finger tightening visibly on the revolver’s curved trigger.
“If I can’t have Marco, nobody will!”
Before her finger could complete the pull, the screech of burning rubber tore through the garage as a black SUV slammed around the corner.
The vehicle slid sideways to a halt fifty feet away, its high-beam headlights blinding Vivienne completely in a wall of brilliant white light.
Marco Santoro leaped from the driver’s side before the vehicle had even fully stopped, moving with terrifying speed.
“Vivienne! Drop the weapon!” Marco roared, his voice shaking the concrete pillars like thunder.
Distracted by the blinding lights and Marco’s thundering arrival, Vivienne swung her gun wildly toward him for half a second.
That half-second was all I needed.
Drawing on every ounce of athletic instinct from years of lifting heavy patients, I lunged forward across the concrete floor.
I slammed my forearm down across Vivienne’s wrist with all my weight, forcing the muzzle of the revolver straight down toward the asphalt.
The gun discharged with a deafening bang, the bullet ricocheting harmlessly off the concrete deck into an empty tire.
Vivienne screamed as I twisted her arm behind her back, using a standard clinical restraint maneuver to pin her against the concrete wall.
Marco reached us in a flash, his boot kicking the dropped firearm twenty feet away across the oil-stained floor.
Two hospital security guards, alerted by the gunfire, swarmed the area with their weapons drawn and radios screaming for police backup.
Marco wrapped his powerful arms around my waist, pulling me backward away from the wall and shielding my body entirely with his own.
“Claire! Are you hit? Did she hit you?” Marco demanded frantically, his hands sweeping over my shoulders, arms, and ribs in desperate terror.
“I’m fine, Marco! I’m completely unhurt!” I assured him, clutching his coat as the adrenaline finally made my knees give way.
Marco held me tightly against his pounding chest, burying his face into my hair as his entire body shook with overwhelming relief.
The police arrived within two minutes, wrestling Vivienne into the back of a patrol cruiser as she shrieked obscenities into the morning air.
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This time, there would be no bail, no high-priced lawyers, and no escape from the consequences of her hatred.
The nightmare was finally, permanently over.
