Chapter 7 - The Safehouse & The Truth
Ten miles uptown, thirty minutes earlier, the storm had knocked out the power on the top five floors of Enzo’s residential tower.
The backup generators had hummed to life instantly, bathing the penthouse in dim, emergency amber lighting.
Khloe had been standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching the lightning fork across the city skyline, when the muted thud of silenced gunshots echoed from the elevator vestibule.
She had frozen, her heart leaping into her throat.
*"Frankie?"* she called out, stepping away from the glass.
The heavy mahogany double doors of the penthouse didn't open. They were blown off their hinges with a concussive blast of breaching charges.
Smoke poured into the living room. Two men dressed in gray tactical gear moved through the haze, submachine guns raised, sweeping the room.
Khloe didn't scream. She didn't hesitate.
She dove behind the long, solid-marble kitchen island just as a burst of suppressed automatic fire shattered the glass wine display behind her, showering the floor in thousands of glittering shards and raining vintage Cabernet across the polished hardwood.
"Check the bedrooms!" a harsh voice barked in heavily accented English. "Marcone wants the girl alive if possible. If not, take her head."
Khloe was on her hands and knees behind the marble counter. Her pulse was a sledgehammer against her ribs. She was unarmed, trapped sixty stories in the air, with professional killers hunting her.
Then she remembered the Onyx Room.
She remembered three years of navigating pitch-black basements, dealing with broken pipes, and avoiding men who thought they were predators. She knew how kitchens worked.
Crawling silently along the base of the island, Khloe reached the commercial gas cooktop. Her fingers found the master gas valve beneath the counter—a heavy red lever. She cranked it ninety degrees.
The sharp, rotten-egg smell of natural gas began hissing into the air.
She grabbed a heavy copper sauté pan from the overhead rack, slipped her shoes off, and crawled toward the pantry door.
Footsteps approached the kitchen—slow, tactical, deliberate.
"In here," one of the men muttered.
Khloe pulled a stainless-steel chef’s knife from the magnetic strip inside the pantry, holding it with both hands, her back pressed against the wall.
The killer rounded the corner of the marble island, his gun sweeping the empty space behind the counter. He smelled the gas. His eyes widened.
Before he could shout a warning, Khloe lunged from the pantry.
She didn't try to fight him like a soldier. She swung the heavy copper pan with all the desperation and fury of a woman who refused to die for another man’s war.
The solid metal base struck the side of his tactical helmet with a hollow *CLANG*, knocking him off balance.
He stumbled sideways. Khloe drove the chef’s knife down with both hands, burying the steel blade into his thigh, right through the tactical fabric.
The man howled in agony, dropping his weapon.
Khloe didn't pause to admire her work. She scooped the dropped Glock from the floor, turned, and sprinted down the private service hallway toward the fire stairs.
"She’s in the hall!" a voice roared behind her.
Bullets chewed through the drywall, plaster exploding around her like white smoke. She burst through the heavy steel fire door into the concrete stairwell, slamming the latch shut, and ran down the stairs as fast as her bare feet could carry her.
Two floors down, the stairwell door below her kicked open.
Khloe raised the gun, her hands shaking violently, aiming down the spiral of concrete stairs.
"Khloe!"
A man burst through the door, soaking wet, covered in mud and blood, his dark eyes wide with pure, unadulterated terror.
Enzo.
The gun dropped from Khloe’s hands, clattering against the concrete.
Enzo took the stairs four at a time. He crashed into her, sweeping her up into his arms, lifting her off her feet and slamming her against his chest with a force that knocked the wind out of her.
"You're alive," he choked out, his face burying into the crook of her neck, his body trembling with a violent, desperate relief. "You're alive. Christ... you're alive."
Khloe wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face into his wet, cold shoulder, smelling the rain, the gunpowder, and the copper tang of blood. The tears she had held back through the entire ordeal finally broke, hot and furious against his skin.
"They came into the house, Enzo," she sobbed against his ear. "They were going to kill me."
"I know," Enzo breathed, his voice deadly, ragged, and filled with a vow that chilled the air around them. "I know. It’s over. Frankie took the lower lobby. The hit squad is dead."
He pulled back, his hands framing her face, searching every inch of her for wounds. His eyes caught the blood on her bare feet from the broken glass.
May you like
Without a word, Enzo scooped her up into his arms, carrying her like she weighed nothing, and carried her down the fire stairs to the waiting underground garage.
***
