Chapter 3 - Broken Locks at Midnight
The brass deadbolt turned with a sickening metallic click.
My heart slammed against my ribs like a caged animal.
I couldn't scream.
The sound died in my dry throat.
The knob twisted.
The heavy wooden door pushed open two inches.
It jerked to a sudden stop against the metal security latch.
Through the narrow crack, a shadow loomed.
A hand slipped through the gap.
Pale fingers.
A heavy gold signet ring on the pinky finger.
Adrien’s ring.
"Lena?" his voice floated into the apartment.
Soft.
Sweet.
Terrifyingly calm.
"Lena, honey, you forgot your umbrella in my car," he whispered through the
crack.
"Unlatch the door, baby."
I stood frozen beside the kitchen island.
The necklace lay on the counter, its red LED pulsing in the dark.
Adrien had a key.
He had made a copy of my apartment key without telling me.
"Lena?"
The gentleness drained from his tone.
His fingers curled around the frame of the door.
"I know you're awake. I saw the kitchen light turn on."
I grabbed the heavy cast-iron skillet from the stovetop.
My hands were sweating.
"Adrien, leave," my voice cracked, but it was loud enough to carry.
"Go home. Now."
Silence hung in the hallway.
Heavy. Stifling.
Then came the laugh.
It wasn't the boyish chuckle I had fallen for over the last six months.
It was low. Mocking. Frigid.
"You opened it, didn't you?" Adrien asked.
He pressed his face closer to the gap.
I caught the glint of his left eye in the dim hallway light.
"You looked inside the pendant."
"What is that thing, Adrien?" I demanded, raising the heavy pan.
"Open the door, Lena. Let me explain."
"No!"
He didn't ask again.
He threw his entire body weight against the door.
BAM!
The wooden frame splintered.
The screws holding the security latch groaned under the impact.
I shrieked, stumbling backward into the kitchen island.
BAM!
Another violent strike.
Plaster rained down from the doorframe.
The metal latch bent at a forty-five-degree angle.
One more hit and the door would tear wide open.
"You're making this harder than it needs to be, Lena!" Adrien yelled, his breath
ragged.
"Just give me the tracker back and we can pretend tonight never happened!"
He pulled back for a third strike.
I braced myself.
I raised the skillet, tears of pure adrenaline burning my eyes.
Then, an explosion of violence erupted in the hallway.
There was a wet, heavy thud.
A sharp grunt of pain.
The sound of someone being slammed face-first into the concrete wall of the
hallway.
"What the f—" Adrien choked out.
A fist struck flesh.
A sickening crack echoed through the crack in the door.
Someone groveled on the floor, gasping for air.
"I told you to leave her alone," a deep voice growled outside.
Victor.
"Victor! Wait—you don't know what she—"
Another strike cut Adrien off.
The sound of a heavy body sliding down the drywall.
Silence fell over the corridor.
Slow, heavy footsteps approached my cracked doorway.
A large hand reached through the broken gap.
The scarred knuckles were bleeding.
Victor flicked the bent security latch with one finger, snapping the sheared
screws entirely.
The door swung wide open.
Victor stood in the entryway.
His black coat was wet from the rain.
His knuckles dripped dark red onto my welcome mat.
Behind him, Adrien lay crumpled on the hallway carpet.
Unconscious.
Blood pooled under his broken nose.
Victor looked past the carnage at his feet and locked eyes with me.
He saw the cast-iron skillet raised in my hands.
He saw the terror in my posture.
"Put the pan down, cara mia," Victor said softly, catching his breath.
"I’m not here to hurt you."
"Get away from me!" I yelled, stepping back. "Both of you! Get out of my loft!"
Victor didn't step inside.
He respected the threshold of my apartment.
He pulled a pristine white handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped the
blood from his knuckles.
"He’s not alone," Victor said, his eyes scanning the staircase behind him.
"Adrien has two men waiting in an SUV down the block. When he doesn't answer his
phone in three minutes, they will come up here with silenced pistols."
My chest heaved.
"Why? I’m a yoga instructor! I don't have anything!"
Victor pointed his bloody chin toward the kitchen counter.
"You have the tracker."
"Take it! It's yours!"
"It’s not just a tracker, Lena," Victor stepped half an inch closer, his dark
eyes burning with deadly urgency.
"That micro-drive contains the encrypted telemetry data from the car that killed
a federal judge six months ago."
My breath seized.
"What?"
"The car was registered in my name," Victor whispered.
"Adrien was driving."
He leaned forward, holding out a scarred, open hand toward me.
"And the yoga studio you own? It sits directly across from the intersection
where the judge died. You were the only witness who saw the driver's face."
Outside, tires screeched on the wet asphalt below my window.
Car doors slammed in unison.
Victor looked toward the stairs, then back at me.
May you like
"We have sixty seconds before they breach the stairs. Come with me, or die in
this kitchen."
