Chapter 6 - Blood on the Silk Dress
The fumes hit my nose first.
Heavy. Choking. Lethal.
Gasoline poured down the wooden steps like a toxic waterfall.
The smell filled the cramped concrete basement within seconds.
"Adrien!" I screamed, lunging toward the base of the stairs.
"Adrien, stop! Are you insane?!"
A soft chuckle drifted through the vent.
"I loved you, Lena. I really did," Adrien said.
His voice was smooth, completely detached from reality.
"You were so innocent. So trusting. But you had to let Victor touch the
necklace. You had to look at things that didn't belong to you."
"Open the damn door, Adrien!" Victor roared from behind me.
His voice shook the concrete walls.
"Goodbye, Victor," Adrien replied.
"Father will be so heartbroken when he hears you killed your new girlfriend in a
fire and couldn't make it out yourself."
A metallic flick clicked through the vent.
The sound of a Zippo lighter.
WHOOSH.
A wall of orange fire erupted at the top of the stairs.
The heat blasted downward, singeing my eyelashes.
Flames devoured the gasoline-soaked wooden treads with horrifying speed.
Smoke—thick, black, and suffocating—billowed down toward us.
"Back! Lena, get back!"
Victor grabbed me by the waist, violently hauling me away from the stairwell.
He shoved me behind the metal server rack where the air was slightly clearer.
I coughed violently, my lungs burning.
"We're trapped! There’s no other door!"
"There’s a coal chute," Victor said, his eyes scanning the ceiling.
He didn't panic.
His voice was terrifyingly calm, focused entirely on survival.
"Every pre-war commercial building in Wicker Park has a street-level coal
chute."
He swept the flashlight beam across the far wall.
Behind a stack of old wooden storage pallets was a rusted iron hatch, bolted
into the concrete foundation.
"Help me move these," Victor ordered.
I grabbed the wooden pallets with him.
Splinters tore into my palms, but the adrenaline numbed the pain.
We hurled the heavy wood aside.
The iron hatch was small.
Maybe two feet wide.
Secured by a rusted padlock that looked like it hadn't moved in fifty years.
Above us, the wooden stairs groaned as the fire tore through the framework.
Burning embers rained down onto the concrete floor.
The heat was unbearable.
My silk dress was drenched in sweat and soot.
Victor didn't waste time looking for a key.
He drew his Glock, stepped back, and aimed point-blank at the padlock.
"Cover your ears!"
BANG!
Sparks flew.
The ricochet chipped concrete two inches from his boots.
The padlock shattered into jagged metal shards.
Victor kicked the iron door with all his might.
CLANG.
The hatch swung outward into the rainy night.
Cool, wet air rushed into the suffocating basement.
I gasped, sucking the rain-soaked oxygen into my burning lungs.
"You first," Victor commanded, grabbing my hips.
"Push through. Crawl into the alley."
"What about the hard drive?" I wheezed through the smoke.
Victor shoved the heavy black server drive into my chest.
"Hold it tight. Go!"
He lifted me as easily as a child.
I squeezed through the narrow iron square.
The rough metal scraped against my bare arms, tearing my skin.
I dragged myself up the angled chute, kicking my legs until I tumbled out onto
the wet asphalt of the alleyway.
Rain poured over my face, washing away the soot.
I rolled over, clutching the hard drive to my chest.
Behind me, Victor pushed his upper body through the chute.
He was too broad.
His wide shoulders wedged against the iron frame.
"Victor!" I screamed, dropping to my knees.
Inside the basement, the ceiling collapsed.
A roar of fire shot up through the chute like a blowtorch.
Victor let out a guttural roar of agony as the flames licked the back of his
leather jacket.
He grabbed the rim of the chute with his bare, scarred hands.
Veins bulged along his neck.
With a violent wrench of pure muscle, he dragged himself out onto the asphalt.
His jacket was smoking.
The back of his shirt was scorched black.
I tore his coat off his shoulders, smothering the smoldering fabric in the wet
puddles of the alley.
His back was red, blistered from the radiant heat, but he didn't make a sound.
He just breathed heavily, his dark eyes locked on the alley entrance.
"We have to move," he rasped, coughing up black soot.
"The fire department will be here in three minutes. And Adrien’s men won't leave
until they see bodies."
I helped him stand.
He leaned on me for a single second before his spine straightened with stubborn,
terrifying pride.
We limped through the shadows of the alley, bypassing the street entirely.
Blood from the scrapes on my arms dripped onto the wet silk of my dress, mixing
with the soot.
We reached the SUV hidden three blocks away.
Victor hit the unlock button, his hands shaking slightly from the shock.
As I opened the passenger door, my phone buzzed in my pocket again.
Another text.
Not from Adrien.
From Antonio Duca.
The father.
“Victor has crossed the line, Lena. Bring the family heirloom to the Lake Forest
estate tonight, or you will be treated as an accomplice to murder.”
I looked at the phone.
May you like
Then I looked at Victor, whose back was covered in severe burns.
The whole family was in on it.
