Chapter 3 - The Traitor's True Face
She thought the monster was in front of her, but the real devil was the one holding the camera."Get under the desk," Adrian ordered, his voice low and dangerous as the sparks flew from the door.
Nora didn't hesitate. She scrambled under a heavy oak desk, pulling a tarp over herself, her eyes wide with terror. Through a gap in the fabric, she watched Adrian stand in the center of the room, completely unbothered by the impending breach. He changed the magazine of his weapon with practiced ease.
The steel door fell inward with a loud crash.
Three men stepped through the smoke, heavily armed and wearing tactical gear. But it was the fourth man who made Nora’s blood run cold.
It was Mr. Dimas. Her short, balding diner manager, who usually spent his days complaining about expired milk and docking her pay for taking five-minute breaks. Except he wasn't wearing his greasy apron anymore; he was wearing a tailored wool coat and carrying a gold-plated revolver.
"Adrian," Dimas smiled, his voice devoid of the high-pitched irritation Nora was used to. "You're a hard man to corner. But you brought your sister right to my doorstep."
"You leaked the location, Dimas," Adrian said, his voice entirely flat. "You've been on the Volkov payroll for six months."
"And why shouldn't I be?" Dimas laughed, stepping closer. "The Volkovs pay in gold. You pay in threats. Where is the Callahan fat girl? She was supposed to ensure Lena died in that room before anyone found her. Did she screw up?"
Nora covered her mouth to suppress a gasp. Dimas had locked Lena in that room. He had intended for the girl to bleed out silently while Nora worked her shift, framing Nora for the negligence and the death.
"She's dead," Adrian lied smoothly. "I killed her myself for failing to keep her mouth shut."
Dimas raised an eyebrow, looking around the room. "Is that so? Then who did these stitches on your sister? They look incredibly neat. Just like the work of old Dr. Callahan."
Dimas pointed his gun directly at the desk where Nora was hiding. "Come out, Nora. Or I put a bullet through this table and see what hits you first."
Nora’s mind raced. She looked around the dark space under the desk and her hand brushed against an old, heavy iron pipe protruding from the floorboards. She grabbed it, her knuckles white.
"Three... two..." Dimas counted down.
Before he could say 'one,' Adrian fired. He dropped two of the tactical guards in a fraction of a second, but Dimas was fast—he threw himself behind the medical table, firing wildly back at Adrian. A bullet caught Adrian in the shoulder, throwing him backward into the wall.
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Dimas lunged toward the desk, ripping the tarp away. "Got you, you fat cow—"
With every ounce of strength she possessed from years of lifting heavy restaurant trays and moving crates, Nora swung the iron pipe upward. It connected perfectly with Dimas’s jaw with a sickening crunch.
