CHAPTER 7 — The Bullet Was Never Meant for Them
The gunshot shattered every window in the bakery.
Glass exploded across the floor like frozen rain.
Customers screamed.
Coffee cups crashed.
Someone crawled beneath a table.
For one terrifying second, nobody moved.
Then Alaric tightened his arms around Tova and pulled her to the floor.
"Stay down!"
A second shot ripped through the front window.
The bullet punched into the brick wall exactly where Tova had been sitting moments earlier.
Tamash burst through the back entrance with three men.
"Boss!"
"The shooter is on the rooftop!"
Without hesitation, two vehicles peeled away toward the neighboring buildings.
The sniper had less than thirty seconds.
Across the street...
A man dressed as a construction worker calmly disassembled his rifle.
He wasn't panicking.
He wasn't running.
He simply removed the suppressor, dropped every piece into separate toolboxes, and walked toward an elevator filled with real workers.
By the time Tamash reached the roof...
The sniper was gone.
Only one thing remained.
A small brass coin lying beside the ventilation unit.
One side showed a raven.
The other displayed the number 17.
Tamash picked it up carefully.
His face changed.
He had seen that symbol before.
Years ago.
In another investigation.
One connected to Maren's death.
Back inside the bakery...
Alaric checked Tova for injuries.
"Are you hit?"
She shook her head, unable to speak.
Then her eyes widened.
"The flash drive..."
The tiny silver USB had vanished.
Her heart stopped.
"It was on the table."
Everyone searched frantically.
Under chairs.
Inside broken cups.
Among shattered glass.
Nothing.
The recording was gone.
Tova buried her face in her hands.
"It was the only copy."
Alaric remained strangely calm.
"No."
She looked at him in confusion.
"It wasn't."
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket.
A second flash drive rested in his palm.
"When you placed yours on the table..."
"I switched it."
Tova stared at him.
"You... knew?"
Alaric gave a faint smile.
"I stopped trusting luck a long time ago."
The sniper hadn't been trying to kill them.
He had been trying to destroy the evidence.
And he had failed.
That evening...
News of the shooting spread across Baltimore.
Police called it an attempted robbery.
Television stations repeated the official statement every hour.
But Alaric knew better.
Someone powerful had controlled the narrative before investigators even reached the scene.
Someone inside the system.
Someone with influence.
Someone terrified of what was on that recording.
Late that night...
Tamash entered Alaric's office carrying a sealed evidence bag.
"We found something else."
Inside was the brass coin with the raven engraved on it.
The moment Alaric saw it...
The color drained from his face.
"I buried one of these with Maren."
Tamash frowned.
"What?"
Alaric slowly opened an old wooden box hidden inside his desk.
For twelve years he had kept every item recovered after his sister's death.
Her watch.
Her necklace.
A faded photograph.
And another identical brass coin.
Same raven.
Same number.
17.
His hands trembled for the first time in years.
"This isn't just Merritt."
"This organization existed long before him."
He looked toward the dark harbor outside his office window.
"The people who murdered my sister..."
"They're still alive."
At the same moment...
Miles away...
Merritt sat inside a luxury townhouse that didn't belong to him.
Across the table sat three powerful men.
One was a wealthy shipping executive.
One wore the robe of a respected judge.
The third remained hidden in shadow.
No one spoke for nearly a minute.
Finally, the man in the darkness asked quietly,
"Did she survive?"
Merritt nodded.
"Yes."
A long silence followed.
Then the stranger said words that turned Merritt's blood cold.
"You've become a liability."
Merritt forced a nervous laugh.
"I've protected all of you for years."
The man slowly slid a pistol across the table.
"You misunderstand."
"It isn't your loyalty we're questioning."
"It's whether you'll survive long enough to talk."
Merritt's smile disappeared.
For the first time in his life...
The monster who had terrorized Tova realized he was no longer the hunter.
He was the next target.
And somewhere across the city...
Tova still had no idea that the evidence she carried wasn't just capable of exposing an abusive husband.
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It could bring down some of the most powerful people in Baltimore.
The war had only just begun.
