Chapter 16 - THE BLACK MARKET CURE
"Sarah! Stay with me! Keep your eyes open!" Mark panicked, holding his wife’s limp body on the cold marble floor.
Her breathing had become terrifyingly shallow, coming in ragged, painful gasps that rattled her thin chest.
Her skin felt ice-cold to the touch, and her fingertips were already darkening into a dull, cyanotic purple.
Jax handed the crying toddler over to one of his trusted crew members, crouching down beside Mark.
His heavy, tattooed hand reached out, pressing two fingers firmly against the main artery in Sarah’s neck.
"Her pulse is spiking, Mark," Jax said grimly, his face drawn tight with grave concern.
"The toxin is taking over her central nervous system."
"We need to get her to an emergency room right now!" Mark yelled, trying to lift Sarah into his arms.
"A hospital can't save her, kid!" Jax interrupted forcefully, grabbing Mark by his coat collar to stop him.
"Standard ER doctors don't know what this chemical compound is."
"If you take her to a public hospital, they'll pump her full of adrenaline and kill her in twenty minutes!"
Mark looked down at his wife's fading face, his eyes welling up with tears of pure desperation and terror.
"Then what do we do, Jax?!" Mark roared, his voice breaking in the grand lobby. "Who has the cure?!"
"Victor Vance," Jax stated, his expression darkening like a storm cloud.
"Your father's estranged, exiled brother."
Mark froze, looking up at Jax in utter disbelief.
"Uncle Victor?" Mark breathed out. "He was banished from the family twenty years ago!"
"He runs an illegal, underground biomedical facility in the northern black hills," Jax explained rapidly.
"He's the one who manufactured that neurological poison for Eleanor in the first place."
"If the poison exists, Victor keeps the synthesized counter-agent locked in his personal laboratory safe."
Mark didn't hesitate for a single second.
He scooped Sarah into his arms, standing up with a surge of adrenaline that ignored the agony in his own wounded shoulder.
"Jax, take Leo to a safe house with two of your best men," Mark ordered, his voice cold, sharp, and deadly.
"The rest of your crew comes with me to Victor's estate."
Jax pulled a heavy chrome 9mm handgun from his vest and jammed it directly into Mark’s coat pocket.
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"Victor doesn't negotiate, Mark," Jax warned softly as they rushed toward the exit.
"If you walk into his compound, you either take the cure by force, or none of us come back alive."
