Chapter 4 - The Knock at MidnightThe sound froze the blood in my veins.
I didn't breathe. I didn't blink. I dropped my keys onto the linoleum counter and crept toward the kitchen, keeping my steps as light as a cat’s.
The kitchen window was closed, but the glass was thin enough to vibrate with the bitter night wind outside. Through the cracked white blinds, the amber streetlight cast long, skeletal shadows across the brick wall of the neighboring building.
A dark silhouette moved across the glass.
Heavy. Deliberate. Armed.
They weren't police officers. The NYPD didn't scale fire escapes in silence at 2:30 in the morning. These were cleaners—men sent by Miller’s superiors to tie up loose ends, starting with the waitress who had interfered with a hit.
My heart hammered so loudly I was terrified the men outside could hear it through the glass.
Helena.
I spun around and bolted down the narrow hallway toward her bedroom. I pushed the door open just enough to slip inside, closing it silently behind me.
Helena was curled beneath her heavy comforter, her dark curls spread across the pillow, one hand clutching a stuffed rabbit she had owned since she was eight. She murmured something in her sleep, her brow furrowing slightly.
I gripped the edge of her desk, my mind racing through frantic, desperate options. There was no back exit. The apartment only had the front door and the kitchen window. If they breached the kitchen, we were trapped like rats.
BAM.
A heavy, metallic blow struck the front entrance door down the hall.
The deadbolt rattled in its frame. Wood splintered around the lock with a loud, terrifying crack.
“Open up!” a gruff voice shouted from the hallway. “Federal Marshals! Open the damn door!”
Federal Marshals? No—that was a lie. Real marshals didn't smash doors down without identifying themselves three times over. These were cartel enforcers wearing stolen badges.
BAM.
The second blow knocked the entire door inward, the brass chain snapping like a dry twig. Heavy footsteps thudded onto our apartment floor, kicking up dust and scattering the mail basket by the entrance.
“Check the bedrooms!” a second voice hissed.
Panic seized my chest, cold and paralyzing. I reached blindly into my pocket, my fingers wrapping around Dante’s metal business card. Without thinking, I pulled out my cell phone, punched in the ten-digit number printed on the back, and hit call with trembling thumbs.
It rang once. Twice.
On the third ring, a deep, calm voice answered instantly.
“I told you to pack a bag, Isidora.”
“They’re inside!” I whispered into the phone, my voice breaking into a terrified sob as heavy footsteps approached the hallway toward Helena’s bedroom door. “They’re in the apartment! They’re going to kill us!”
“Lock the bedroom door from the inside,” Dante commanded, his voice utterly devoid of panic, sharp and cold as steel. “Move away from the wall. And do not make a sound.”
“What are you going to do?!” I cried out.
“I’m already in your hallway,” Dante said.
May you like
Click.
Before I could process his words, a violent volley of gunfire erupted just outside Helena’s bedroom door. Shouting curses, shattering wood, and the heavy thud of bodies hitting the floor shook the apartment walls.
