Chapter 9 - THE CHOICE IN THE CORRIDOR
Down the hallway, Clare felt the floor beneath her feet tremble slightly as her knees threatened to give out. She was standing in the open, watching a high-level hitman prepare to execute the heir to Chicago’s most powerful crime syndicate.
If she stayed, she was a witness. If she moved, she might draw Frank's attention.
Her eyes darted to the wall behind her cart, where the red emergency alarm pull-box was mounted near the fire exit door. Pulling that handle would set off loud strobe lights and sirens across the entire forty-second floor, triggering an automated call to the Chicago Police Department and bringing hotel security swarming up the elevators in under two minutes.
It would save Nicholas—but it would also expose him to the world, destroying his dead status and bringing his uncle's entire apparatus down on his head.
And more than that, it would put her name on the incident report.
Clare looked back toward Suite 4227.
Nicholas shifted his weight slightly, his right hand slipping behind his back toward the waistband of his trousers where his handgun was stashed. But Frank saw the movement. Frank’s shoulder dropped, his gloved hand coming up inside his trench coat pocket to raise the suppressed weapon through the fabric.
They were a fraction of a second away from a silent, lethal strike.
Clare didn't think. Instinct, forged by months of survival in a harsh city, took over.
She lifted the heavy wooden housekeeping broom leaning against her cart, swung her arm back, and jammed the handle directly into the metallic fire-extinction glass case mounted beside her.
CRASH!
The heavy glass panel shattered into a hundred glittering shards against the carpeted floor.
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An ear-splitting, high-decibel alarm instantly erupted down the hallway. Red strobe lights mounted along the ceiling began pulsing frantically, casting a harsh, rhythmic crimson glare over the polished mahogany doors.
"FIRE EMERGENCY. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY," an automated female voice boomed through the corridor speakers.
