Chapter 3 - Silent Shadows
The silence hanging over the DeLuca estate was more terrifying than the fire.
Roman stood standing in the shadows of the stone fountain, his jaw set, his eyes cold. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. The screen was cracked, but the display flickered to life.
Zero bars. Signal jammer.
“They didn’t just set a fire,” Roman muttered. “They isolated the sector. Security grid, comms, perimeter alarms. Someone executed a clean sweep.”
Nora wiped a streak of mud from Maisie’s face. “Who? You have fifty guards on this property.”
“I had fifty guards,” Roman corrected smoothly. “Now I have traitors and corpses. And right now, I don’t know which is which.”
He turned his eyes to Nora. For the first time, he really looked at her. She was twenty-seven, thin, wearing the gray trousers and white collar of the estate’s domestic staff. Her dark hair was wet and plastered to her neck, her hands trembling, but her eyes—a striking, defiant green—showed no panic. Only a mother’s iron resolve.
“You have five seconds to make a choice, Nora,” Roman said. “You can take your daughter, run for the east gate, and hope whoever is hunting me doesn’t care about housekeepers. Or you stay with me, do exactly what I say, and survive the night.”
Nora looked at the dark silhouette of the estate gates half a mile down the winding driveway. Then she looked at the towering man in front of her.
“If they locked a three-year-old in a burning building,” Nora said, her voice steadying into cold steel, “they aren’t leaving witnesses. We’re staying with you.”
Roman gave a single, tight nod. “Good. Hold her close. Don’t make a sound.”
He led them away from the manicured lawns, dipping into the dense treeline that bordered the estate’s perimeter. Roman moved with silent, practiced efficiency, knowing every inch of the land. He pulled a small silver key from a hidden chain around his neck.
They reached the rear of the main house, near the subterranean wine cellars. The heavy iron service door sat in the shadow of a massive stone archway.
Roman stopped, raising a hand.
On the ground near the threshold lay a man in a black tactical uniform. He was face down in the gravel, a pool of dark liquid spreading around his head.
Nora gasped, instinctively pulling Maisie’s head against her shoulder so the child couldn’t see.
Roman stepped over the body, checking the dead man’s wrist. “Julian’s team,” Roman whispered.
“Julian?” Nora breathed. “Your head of security?”
“Former head of security,” Roman corrected grimly. He bent down, unholstered a slick, heavy Glock 19 from the dead guard’s tactical rig, checked the magazine, and racked the slide with a clean, metallic clack.
The sound was sharp in the quiet night.
Maisie peeked over Nora’s shoulder, her wide eyes watching the shiny metal object in Roman’s hand. “Is that a toy?”
Roman looked at the little girl, his expression softening for a fraction of a second. “No, sweetheart. It’s an eraser.”
“For bad drawings?”
“For bad people,” Roman said.
He inserted the key into the heavy iron door, turned it twice, and pushed it open. Instead of leading into the wine cellar, a narrow, reinforced concrete corridor stretched into darkness, lit only by low-voltage red floor lights.
May you like
“In,” Roman ordered.
Nora stepped inside, carrying Maisie. Roman followed, pulling the heavy steel door shut behind them. The lock engaged with three heavy hydraulic thuds, sealing out the night, the rain, and the quiet horror of the estate.
