Chapter 3 - THE RAT TRAPThe click of the basement deadbolt sounded like a guillotine dropping.
My mind spun. How had someone gotten into the basement? There were only two entrances: the exterior bulkhead doors, which were padlocked from the outside, and the interior door right here in our hallway. If someone was coming up the basement stairs, they had bypassed the locks entirely.
Unless... Derek had given someone a key weeks ago.
"Lily, down!" I hissed, pulling her off me and shoving her behind the massive oak kitchen island. "Stay under there. Do not make a sound, no matter what you hear. If anyone other than me calls your name, you run out the back window and don't look back. Do you understand?"
She nodded fiercely, biting her lower lip until it turned white, tears streaming silently down her face.
I grabbed the heavy iron skillet from the stove burner—still greasy from morning eggs—and crept toward the hallway. The basement door swung open with a slow, agonizing groan. A wave of damp, cold air rolled up the steps, carrying the faint, metallic scent of wet earth and aftershave.
Footsteps began to mount the stairs. Heavy, slow, deliberate steps. One, two, three.
I raised the iron skillet high above my head, my muscles burning, my breath trapped in my throat. At the top of the dark stairwell, a pair of leather shoes appeared, followed by the hem of a dark trench coat.
"I told you, Marcus," a familiar, raspy voice muttered from the shadows of the stairwell. "She’s too smart to just sit there. You should have cut the power first."
It wasn't Marcus. It was Uncle Julian—Derek’s older brother, who supposedly lived three states away and hadn't visited us in five years.
"Julian?" I gasped, lowering the skillet for a fraction of a second—a fatal mistake.
Julian stepped out of the darkness, a cruel, apologetic smile plastered across his face. In his right hand, he held a heavy-duty stun gun, the blue electrical arc crackling menacingly in the dim hallway light.
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"Hey there, little sister," Julian said smoothly. "Nothing personal, Elena. But Derek’s got a lot riding on this weekend. And frankly, your life insurance policy has a much higher yield than my retirement fund."
Before I could swing the skillet, Julian lunged forward with terrifying speed. The electrical prongs struck my shoulder, and a bolt of white-hot agony tore through my nervous system, stealing the air from my lungs and sending me crashing hard against the hardwood floor.
