Chapter 5 - The Trap SpringsThe afternoon stretched out in absolute, deafening silence.
I tried to watch television, but the mindless chatter of daytime talk shows grated on my raw nerves. I tried to read a thriller novel I found on the living room shelf, but every time a siren wailed down on the street below, my entire body went rigid.
By 4:30 p.m., the sun had begun to dip behind the sprawling Chicago skyline, casting long, bruised shadows across the grey-and-cream apartment.
I walked into the kitchen to pour myself another glass of water. As I turned on the faucet, a strange, low-frequency hum vibrated through the floorboards.
I paused, listening.
It sounded like a heavy truck idling in the alleyway behind the building. But we were on the seventh floor. You couldn't hear idling engines up here unless they were massive—or parked directly beneath the private service elevator.
My skin prickled with goosebumps.
I walked quietly out of the kitchen, tiptoeing toward the front entryway. The digital lock on the heavy oak door was glowing a steady, peaceful blue.
Click.
The blue light flickered. Once. Twice.
Then it turned solid, blinding red.
My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird. I backed away, my breath catching in my throat. The private elevator override code had just been entered from the outside.
Not Kian. Not Ronan.
Someone had the master sequence.
I sprinted toward the kitchen island, frantically searching for the burner phone Ronan had left me. My shaking fingers grabbed it just as the heavy oak front door groaned, the electronic deadbolt sliding open with a sickening mechanical thud.
The door swung wide.
Standing in the entryway wasn't Ronan. It wasn't Kian.
It was a man in a dark grey maintenance uniform, holding a heavy wrench in one hand and a silenced pistol in the other. Behind him, slipping through the threshold with a bruised cheek and a look of pure, unadulterated madness in his eyes, was my father.
Gregor Easton.
“Well, well, well,” Gregor rasped, a sickening grin splitting his face as he stepped into the pristine living room, tracking mud across the cream-colored rug. “Look at how the little princess lives. Fancy apartment. Rich boyfriend. Did you think you could hide from me, Iris?”
I backed up until my hips hit the marble island, my fingers pressing the speed-dial button for Ronan on the burner phone.
Ring... ring... ring...
“Drop the phone, you little whore!” Gregor snarled, lunging forward while the man in the maintenance uniform raised the silenced pistol toward my chest.
Before I could scream, the ceiling-mounted security speaker crackled to life.
“Iris,” Ronan’s voice roared through the intercom, cold, murderous, and filled with a fury that could have shattered glass. “Step away from her.”
Gregor froze, looking up at the ceiling speaker in panic. “What the hell—?”
“You’re trespassing, Gregor,” Ronan’s voice echoed, deadly calm. “And you brought a gun into my home.”
The man in the maintenance uniform spun around, aiming his pistol toward the hallway cameras. But he was half a second too slow.
From the service stairwell door—which had been silently blown off its hinges—Kian and three armed security operatives poured into the penthouse like a tidal wave of tactical gear and absolute violence.
The next thirty seconds were a blur of shattering glass, shouted commands, and the dull, brutal thud of bodies hitting the floor.
Gregor screamed as Kian tackled him over the coffee table, slamming the older man’s face into the hardwood with enough force to knock him out cold. The man in the maintenance uniform tried to raise his gun, but a heavy-booted kick from one of the operatives sent the weapon clattering across the floor, followed swiftly by a knee pressed firmly into his neck.
When the dust finally settled, the pristine living room looked like a war zone.
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Gregor was unconscious on the shattered coffee table. The hired gun was pinned face-down on the rug.
And standing in the open elevator foyer, his suit jacket ruined, his knuckles bloodied, and his eyes burning with a terrifying, apocalyptic rage, was Ronan Morgan.
