Chapter 3 - Blood on the Glass
"Get down!" Julian Vance roared, tackling me to the floor just as a second volley of bullets tore through the drywall above our heads.
Glass rained down like glittering shrapnel, cutting into the rug and slicing my forearm. Blood welled up instantly, staining my sleeve, but the sharp sting of pain was entirely drowned out by the deafening roar of automatic gunfire echoing from the street below.
Eleanor Thorne didn't even flinch. While the two massive bodyguards drew suppressed pistols and returned fire toward the broken window, Eleanor calmly straightened her jacket, stepping over a pile of shattered glass as if she were walking through a botanical garden.
"They're early," Eleanor muttered, glancing at her diamond-encrusted wristwatch. "I calculated we had at least an hour before the Vanguard faction intercepted the legal notification."
"Who is shooting at us?!" I screamed over the din of gunfire, pinned to the floor beneath Julian's heavy frame.
"Vanguard," Julian yelled back, his face grim as he pulled a sleek black handgun from a shoulder holster I hadn't noticed earlier. "A rival syndicate led by a man named Viktor Vance—no relation to me. They want the Thorne encryption keys. The keys that Carl hid inside the wedding ring he gave you."
My eyes widened in pure horror. I looked down at my left hand. On my ring finger sat a simple, heavy platinum band Carl had slid onto my finger during our quiet, unceremonious living room wedding. I had thought it was just a cheap placeholder.
“It’s the one thing I want to do before I die,” Carl's voice echoed in my memory.
It wasn't just a symbol of affection. It was a cryptographic hardware token.
"Give me your hand!" Eleanor commanded, stepping over to me and grabbing my wrist with surprising strength before I could pull away.
"Don't touch me!" I yanked my hand back, scrambling backward until my back hit the base of the bookshelf. Books tumbled down around me, but I didn't care. "You people are insane! This is a nightmare! I want out! Annul the marriage! Take the money, take the ring, take everything!"
"It's too late for an annulment, child," Eleanor said coldly, ducking as another bullet punched clean through the wooden frame of the front door. "The moment you signed that registry, your signature was broadcasted to every intelligence ledger from Geneva to Hong Kong. You are Carl's widow. In the eyes of the underworld, you are the new head of the table. They won't stop hunting you until you're breathing the same air as my brother."
Julian kicked open the kitchen service door at the back of the apartment. "We have to move. Now. The stairwell is compromised, but Carl installed a reinforced utility hatch beneath the floorboards of the pantry."
"A utility hatch?" I stared at him, my mind spinning. "In my apartment? How do you even—"
"Carl bought this entire apartment building three years ago," Julian interrupted, grabbing my good arm and hauling me to my feet. "Every tenant in this complex is either on our payroll or a retired operative. Move, Oanh! If you want to survive the next ten minutes, you run when I tell you to run."
May you like
As we scrambled into the kitchen, the front door was blown off its hinges with a deafening boom. Heavy boots stomped into the living room, followed by a cold, metallic voice cutting through the smoke:
"Clear the rooms! Find the widow and cut the ring off her finger!"
