Chapter 2 - The Glass RainThe sound of gunfire bounced off the concrete core of the Drexal Building like a string of heavy firecrackers, followed immediately by the screams of panicked administrative assistants echoing down the corridor.
"Stay down!" Adrien ordered, his body pressing over mine, shielding me from the glittering cascade of safety glass raining across the rug.
My heart hammered against my ribs, a wild, trapped bird. I pressed my hands against my lower abdomen, a primal, protective instinct overriding everything else. The baby.
"Sniper," Adrien muttered, his eyes darting toward the jagged, smoking hole in the double-paned window three hundred yards away across the empty street. "High-caliber. Armor-piercing round. They didn't want to kill me, Norah. They wanted to send a message."
"A message about what?" I gasped, dust and gunpowder stinging my nose.
"About the fact that someone already knows you're pregnant," Adrien snarled, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek.
The security alarms began to wail, a shrill, rhythmic screech that pierced the air as emergency shutters dropped from the ceiling, sealing the fourteenth floor in heavy steel plates. Heavy footsteps pounded outside the office door as three of Adrien’s private bodyguards—armed tactical operators in black Kevlar vests—burst into the room, rifles raised.
"Boss! Sector four is compromised! The shooter is on the roof of the textile warehouse across the avenue!" the lead guard shouted, scanning the room before locking eyes with Adrien.
Adrien stood up slowly, pulling me up with him. His grip on my arm was ironclad, but his fingers were steady. The panic that had paralyzed me moments ago was entirely absent from his face; instead, a terrifying, icy calm had taken its place. This was the man who ruled the docks, the man who laundered millions through cryptocurrency and international shipping lanes. Blood and violence weren't disruptions to his world; they were its native language.
"Get her to the basement garage," Adrien commanded, unholstering a sleek, suppressed Sig Sauer pistol from a concealed shoulder holster beneath his tailored suit jacket and checking the magazine. "Put her in the bunker vehicle. If anyone intercepts us on the way down, you shoot to kill. No warnings."
"Adrien, wait!" I cried out as the guards flanked us, ushering us rapidly toward the private service elevator tucked behind the executive washrooms. "I have my phone—I have my things—"
"Your phone is a tracking beacon," he interrupted sharply, his dark eyes boring into mine. "The moment that glass shattered, your phone started pinging every cell tower in a two-block radius. We are burning every electronic footprint you ever owned."
He shoved my phone into his coat pocket and slammed his thumb against the biometric scanner of the private elevator. The heavy doors slid open, revealing a private shaft that bypassed the main building entirely.
As we descended into the subterranean depths of the Drexal Building, the harsh fluorescent lights flickered. I stood pressed against the cold metal wall, watching Adrien. His suit jacket was dusted with glass shards, a tiny drop of blood staining his white cuff from a minor scratch on his forearm, but he looked completely untouchable.
"You brought me into this," I whispered, the reality of my situation finally crashing over me with crushing weight. "If I hadn't worked for your financial division—if I hadn't gone to Chicago—"
"If you hadn't walked into my life, Norah, someone else would have tried to break me," Adrien cut me off, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling timbre that vibrated through the small elevator car. He stepped closer, boxing me in against the wall with one hand braced above my head. "You think you're a victim of circumstance? You're not. You're the only person in this entire city who ever looked me in the eye and told me no. And now that you're carrying my child, you belong to my world whether you want to or not."
"I don't belong to anyone!" I flashed back, my anger momentarily overriding my terror.
"Keep telling yourself that," he murmured, his gaze dropping briefly to my stomach before snapping back to my eyes. "When the men who shot through that window realize they missed me, they'll come for the next best thing. They'll come for you."
The elevator chimed, the doors sliding open to reveal the cavernous, dimly lit underground parking garage where a matte-black, armor-plated Mercedes SUV idled with its engine roaring.
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Adrien pulled me toward the vehicle, his body acting as a human shield. But as the rear door clicked open, a second sound cut through the roar of the engine—a sound that made every muscle in Adrien’s body freeze.
The distinct, metallic click of a shotgun being racked from the shadows behind the concrete pillars.
