Chapter 5 - The Unmarked Sedan
The black SUV crept down the street with agonizing slowness, its tinted windows absorbing the fading neon light of the avenue. Leo’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped animal. Without waiting for Miller to ask a second time, he scooped Lily into his arms and scrambled into the back seat of the unmarked sedan, pulling the heavy door shut behind them with a muffled thud.
The interior of the car smelled faintly of worn leather, black coffee, and cheap pine air freshener. Miller slid into the driver's seat immediately, throwing the transmission into drive and killing the headlights before pulling smoothly away from the curb just as the black SUV accelerated behind them.
"Keep your head down, Lily," Leo whispered, pressing his sister’s blonde head gently into his lap. The little girl whimpered softly, her eyes heavy with pain and exhaustion, the makeshift white handkerchief around her knee now soaked through with a dark, alarming stain.
Miller checked his rearview mirror, his hands gripping the steering wheel with practiced, steady precision. "They saw us. They’re hanging back a block, but they’ve got our plates."
"Can't you lose them?" Leo asked, his voice trembling as he watched the distant headlights weaving through the thickening evening traffic.
"In this grid? Not easily without drawing fire," Miller replied grimly, cutting hard down a narrow alleyway lined with overflowing industrial dumpsters and flickering neon signs. The sedan bounced roughly over potholes, causing Lily to cry out in pain. Leo winced, wrapping his arms around her to cushion the jolts. "Hold on. This is going to get bumpy."
"Where are we going? You said not the hospital!" Leo demanded, panic rising in his chest like choked smoke.
"The public hospital is crawling with city cops and corporate security tied to the syndicate," Miller explained, his eyes darting between the mirrors and the road ahead. "If we walk in there with a bleeding kid and no insurance, we fill out forms, we get put on a public registry, and within twenty minutes, every bounty hunter from here to Queens has our address. We're going to a private clinic. An underground spot run by an old friend of mine who asks zero questions."
"Is she going to be okay?" Leo asked, looking down at his sister's pale face. The freckles across her nose stood out sharply against her colorless skin.
Miller didn't answer right away. He navigated a sharp turn into a dimly lit industrial park near the waterfront, where the salty smell of the harbor replaced the stench of city exhaust. "Her knee needs stitches, Leo. Fast. But that's not the biggest problem anymore."
"What do you mean?"
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"I mean that briefcase you almost grabbed wasn't filled with regular drug money," Miller said, slowing the car down as they approached a nondescript metal loading dock with a single flickering bulb above a reinforced steel door. "It belonged to the city's district attorney. And it contains evidence that puts half the city council behind bars."
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