Chapter 4 - The Midnight KnockAt 2:14 AM, the heavy oak door of the luxury penthouse didn't just knock—it rattled under a series of rhythmic, heavy blows.
Ethan woke up with a start, drenched in cold sweat. He rolled over, but Brittany’s side of the king-sized bed was empty.
"Brittany?" Ethan muttered, rubbing his eyes and sitting up in the dark.
The heavy thumping came again, louder this time.
Groaning, Ethan threw on a silk bathrobe, stumbled out of the bedroom, and walked through the dark, silent living room toward the entryway. "All right, all right, I'm coming! Stop banging on the damn—"
He swung the door open, ready to scream at a late-night delivery driver or an aggressive process server.
The words died instantly in his throat.
Standing in the dimly lit hallway wasn't a process server. It was a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a tailored black trench coat, his face partially obscured by the shadow of a fedora. But it wasn't the man's appearance that made Ethan's blood run ice cold.
It was the silver-haired wolfhound standing beside him on a heavy leather leash, and the leather briefcase the man held in his right hand.
"Vance," a deep, gravelly voice echoed through the hallway.
"Who... who are you?" Ethan stammered, backing away instinctively as the stranger stepped uninvited past him into the foyer.
The man closed the door behind him with a heavy thud that locked with an automated electronic click. He stepped into the light of the entryway chandelier. It was Viktor Rostov—a notoriously ruthless Russian debt collector whose name whispered in underground circles was enough to make grown men check into psychiatric wards.
"You remember me, Ethan?" Viktor asked, a terrifyingly polite smile stretching across his scarred face. "Or did fifty million dollars make you forget your friends in Las Vegas?"
Ethan’s knees went weak. He grabbed the wall to keep from collapsing. "Viktor... I... I told you, the money is coming! The insurance company just put a temporary hold on the funds—"
"Temporary hold?" Viktor’s smile vanished instantly. His expression turned to cold, lethal granite. He stepped forward so fast Ethan didn't even see him move, grabbing Ethan by the lapels of his silk bathrobe and slamming him hard against the hallway wall.
The impact knocked the wind right out of Ethan's lungs.
"My bosses in Moscow don't care about insurance holds, Ethan!" Viktor hissed, his face inches from Ethan's nose. "You borrowed four million dollars to fund your little tech startup scheme three years ago. With compounding interest and penalties, your debt is currently sitting at seven point two million dollars. And today, all of your personal credit cards were declined."
"That's... that's a mistake!" Ethan gasped, clawing desperately at Viktor’s thick leather gloves. "Cross National is auditing me! As soon as the audit clears—"
"There is no audit clearing," a cold, feminine voice cut through the dark hallway.
Ethan and Viktor both turned their heads.
Brittany was standing at the top of the master staircase, wrapped in her silk robe, her face pale, her eyes wide with sheer terror. But she wasn't looking at Viktor.
She was looking at the glowing red screen of her tablet in her hand.
"Ethan," Brittany whispered, her voice trembling so violently she could barely speak. "I just checked our offshore account."
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Ethan stared at her, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "What... what are you talking about?"
"It's gone," Brittany screamed, tears bursting from her eyes as she dropped the tablet onto the carpeted stairs, where it shattered into pieces. "The fifty million! It's completely wiped out! Every single cent is gone!"
