“Briska.” Tavros’s voice was a low growl, cutting through the whirring dread. His gray irises held hers, waiting. The timer on Nyssa’s console blinked red: 00:01:55… Briska thought of the icy dread of the street, the sneering triage nurse, the constant, gnawing fear of being alone. She thought of Pello, small and brilliant, clutching his tablet. She thought of Nyssa, pale and fragile after years of illness. And then she thought of Tavros, sweeping Pello into his arms, buying an entire hospital, his fury a shield against Garek Moraine. Her cynical mind screamed that this was a transaction, too, a repayment for services rendered. But the warmth of his hand on hers, the raw, unguarded worry in his gaze, felt like more than a debt. It felt like a foundation. “We trust you,” Briska said, the words alien on her tongue, yet firm. “Tell us what to do.” Tavros didn’t hesitate. He barked orders into a comms link clipped to his collar. “Alpha, Beta, Delta teams! Proceed with the ventilation counter-offensive. Gamma, secure the top floor perimeter. No one in, no one out. Do not engage until my signal. Nyssa, can you buy us more time before the gas deploys?” Nyssa, her face a mask of fierce concentration, typed furiously. “I’m routing their gas distribution to the biohazard waste disposal. It’ll delay it by… half a minute. If they don’t notice the pressure drop.” “That is enough time.” Tavros turned to Briska. “They’re coming for Pello. We create a decoy. Quickly.” He pulled a standard hospital pillow from an armchair, ripping open its case. Briska, without a word, snatched a thick blanket from Pello’s cleared bed, folding it to approximate the boy’s slight form. They placed the makeshift bundle under the crisp white sheets, arranging it to mimic a sleeping child. Briska even ruffled the hair of a plush toy lion near its head for added realism. The entire process took less than ten heartbeats. “Panic room,” Tavros commanded, herding Briska, Pello, and Nyssa toward a concealed door near the suite’s main entrance. “It’s reinforced. Soundproof. We observe from there.” Just as the heavy door sealed shut with a soft hiss, muffling the distant sirens now wailing across Port Canto, a sudden clang echoed from the main ventilation shaft above the recovery room. A grid dislodged, falling with a jarring thud. A dark form dropped silently onto the plush carpet, followed by another. Two operatives in tactical carbon gear dropped through the opening. “Target confirmed,” a raspy voice whispered into a comms piece. “Pediatric suite. Moving to retrieve target.” Briska felt a cold dread settle in her stomach. They were inside. And they were heading directly for Pello’s decoy bed. The lead intruder crept toward the bed, a dart gun raised, while the second paused. His gaze swept the opulent suite, calculating. He spotted Nyssa’s console, still humming with residual energy, its small, flashing lights indicating recent activity. His head tilted. “The girl,” he muttered, his voice carrying faintly through the reinforced glass of the panic room. “She’s the one disabling the network. Garek wants the source code, not just the asset.” He veered, bypassing the decoy, and lunged toward the console. Nyssa, who had been peering over Briska’s shoulder, gasped, scrambling back from the glass. Before anyone could react, the operative crashed through the glass partition into the adjoining study. Shards sprayed across the carpet. He moved with brutal efficiency, grabbing Nyssa by the arm, spinning her around, and pressing a gleaming blade to her throat. The silver edge glinted dangerously close to her jugular. “Where are the algorithms, girl?” the man snarled, his voice muffled behind the mask. “Hand over the trading code, or your pretty neck gets slit right here.” Briska slammed both palms against the transparent barrier, her voice trapped behind acoustic insulation. She hammered on the glass, uselessly. Tavros was already moving, his hand on the heavy door, but Pello, silent until now, held up his tablet. His small thumbs flew across the smooth obsidian surface. “Don’t worry, Mama,” Pello said, his voice strangely calm. “He won’t get Nyssa.” Suddenly, with a deafening *thunk*, the massive, reinforced blast doors on the ward exterior slammed shut. The intruder stiffened, his head snapping toward the corridor. The door to the main suite sealed off his escape. The elevator doors, too, groaned shut, locking in place. “What in the—” The man stumbled back, his hold loosening. Tavros wrenched the hatch open and lunged forward. He moved with a speed Briska hadn’t known he possessed, closing the distance in two strides. Before the man could recover his stance, Tavros grabbed his wrist. There was a sickening crack as the blade clattered to the floor. Tavros followed up with a brutal, precise strike to the man’s temple, sending him sprawling. The second intruder whirled toward the threshold, but Tavros’s security team breached the perimeter. A jolt from a stun baton dropped him instantly. Tavros knelt beside Nyssa, gently checking her throat, his face etched with concern. Briska rushed to her sister, pulling her into a tight embrace. Nyssa was trembling, but otherwise unharmed. Watching Tavros, seeing his utter devotion, the violence he was willing to unleash to protect *their* family, something within Briska shifted. Her long habit of running dissolved. It wasn’t just about keeping her family off the radar anymore. It was about standing beside this man, facing down Garek, and utterly destroying him. Together. She looked at Tavros, a new understanding blooming in her chest, warm and undeniable. The dazed ringleader began to stir. Tavros’s guards secured him, cuffing his hands behind his back. The man coughed, a thick crimson glob hitting the pristine white carpet. A feral grin twisted his lips. His gaze, even through the balaclava, was venomous, directed at Tavros. “You think you’ve won, Vengat?” he rasped, his voice bubbling with a terrifying glee. “You think Garek is stupid enough to be here? He’s not. He’s already at your cliff-top manor, waiting. He’s gone to pay a visit to your lovely fiancée.”

The Midpoint Siege