The Healer's Redemption

Chapter 2: The Sick Cat Dilemma

The air in the room didn’t just grow thin; it curdled.

Velmira’s fingers tightened around the drive. The plastic edge bit into her palm, a sharp, grounding pain.

"The lady," the gunman repeated, his voice devoid of inflection. "She stays."

"She has nothing to do with this," Jorvan scrambled to his feet, his chair screeching against the parquet. He looked pathetic—the polished financier undone by a single, desperate gamble. "Take me. Leave her."

"Jorvan, shut up," Velmira hissed. She didn’t look at him. She watched the gunman’s trigger finger. It was slack, relaxed. Professional. "You’re making it worse."

"He’s not the one who signed the ledgers, Mr. Vance," the second man noted, stepping over the threshold. He pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and began to stretch them over his knuckles. "But she is the one holding the evidence."

Velmira looked at the balcony door, then at the heavy mahogany table between them. "I’m not a liability, Jorvan. Stop acting like I’m a piece of furniture you’re trying to offload."

"Velmira, for God’s sake—"

"Quiet!" The gunman barked. He took a measured step forward. "The drive. On the floor. Slide it."

Velmira looked down at the floor, then back at the door. Three feet to the hallway. Two to the kitchen. Five to the cat carrier.

"Mochi," she murmured.

"What?" Jorvan blinked, his eyes wide.

"The cat. You left the back door cracked for him. He’s been out in the garden for an hour." She shifted her weight. "He’s going to be terrified by the noise."

"Who cares about the cat?" the gunman sneered, taking another step.

"I do," Velmira said, her voice turning ice-cold. She pivoted, not toward the balcony, but toward the corner of the room where a heavy, decorative brass vase sat on a pedestal. She didn't throw the drive. She threw the salt cellar—hard.

It shattered against the gunman’s head. He stumbled, the pistol wavering as he fired a reflex shot that buried itself into the mahogany table.

"Run!" Velmira screamed, grabbing Jorvan by the blazer and shoving him toward the kitchen.

They scrambled, shoes slipping on the scattered papers of the dissolution agreement. The second man lunged, but Velmira slammed the kitchen door, throwing the heavy brass deadbolt just as a body hit the wood with the force of a battering ram.

"The back exit!" Jorvan gasped, his face grey.

"Mochi!"

"Velmira, leave the damn cat!"

"He’s in the laundry room!" She ignored him, sprinting across the tile floor. She threw open the utility door to find the Maine Coon huddled in the corner, fur puffed out to twice his size, his breathing ragged and shallow.

"He’s sick, Jorvan. Look at him."

"We are being hunted by hitmen and you’re doing a wellness check?" Jorvan grabbed her arm, dragging her toward the garden gate.

"He’s wheezing!" She scooped Mochi up, the heavy cat burying his claws into her sweater.

The kitchen door splintered. A heavy boot kicked through the wood paneling, followed by a silenced thwip that sent a ceramic bowl exploding off the counter.

"The garage," Jorvan muttered, his breath coming in jagged hitches. "We can take the sedan. It’s armored."

"You armored the sedan?"

"Against paparazzi, yes!"

They burst into the garage, the concrete floor cold beneath their feet. Velmira vaulted into the passenger seat, cradling Mochi, who let out a pained, wet meow that cut through the silence of the garage.

"He’s not just scared, Jorvan. He’s been poisoned. Or he’s dying."

Jorvan slammed the ignition. The engine growled to life, the garage door sensors whining as they slowly began to crawl upward. "There is a private clinic four miles away. Dr. Aris. He asks no questions."

"He’s a plastic surgeon for socialites, not a vet!"

"He’s a man who owes me a favor that could save our lives!"

The garage door reached the halfway point. A silhouette darkened the aperture. The gunman was there, standing with the calm, terrifying patience of a reaper. He raised the pistol.

"Duck!" Jorvan roared.

He didn't hit the throttle; he slammed the car into reverse, spinning the vehicle on the slick concrete. The tires shrieked, burning rubber as he drifted the car toward the side service door.

Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.

Glass exploded as the windshield took three rounds.

"Hold him!" Velmira cried, clutching the cat as the car slammed into the side wall, knocking the door off its hinges and spilling them out into the dark alleyway behind the mansion.

Jorvan gripped the wheel, his knuckles white. "We aren't going to the clinic."

"Why?"

He pointed to the dash. A red light was blinking—a GPS tracking signal. "They put a tracker on the car. If we go to the clinic, we’re leading them to the only person who can help us."

Velmira looked down at Mochi. The cat’s eyes were glassy, his head lolling back against her palm. He was fading fast.

"Then we go to the only place they won't look," she said, her voice hardening. "My sister’s apartment. She’s a pediatric nurse, and she hates you. They’ll never think you’d be desperate enough to beg for her help."

Jorvan looked at her, his eyes hollow. "She has a crossbow, doesn't she?"

"She has two," Velmira replied.

A black sedan screeched around the corner of the alley, its high beams blinding them. Jorvan stomped the gas, the armored car surging forward, but as they crested the rise of the road, the car lurched.

The engine sputtered.

"Jorvan?"

"Fuel line," he whispered, staring at the dash. "They hit the fuel line."

The car coasted, losing speed, and eventually rolled to a stop in the middle of a deserted intersection. Behind them, the black sedan slowed, its lights turning off. They were sitting in total darkness.

"Out," Jorvan commanded. "We run."

Velmira gripped Mochi tight to her chest and kicked the door open. As they hit the pavement, a spotlight from a heavy-duty drone overhead bathed them in blinding white light.

A voice boomed from the drone, cold and synthesized.

"Mr. Vance. Ms. Velmira. The data, or the cat."

Velmira looked at the drive in her pocket, then at the dying cat in her arms. She looked at Jorvan, who was reaching for a hidden compartment in the car’s undercarriage.

"Jorvan, wait—"

"I have a detonator," he hissed, his face twisted in a mask of pure, unadulterated terror. "But if I trigger it, we die, too."