Chapter 4 - The Enemy at the Door
The quiet of the apartment was shattered at 2:14 a.m.
It didn't sound like a knock. It sounded like an explosion of splintering wood and heavy boots hitting the hallway floor.
Sarah bolted upright in her bed, her heart leaping into her throat. From the next room, she heard Lily gasp in terror.
Before Sarah’s feet could hit the floor, the bedroom door swung open.
Adrian was already standing. The softness of a few hours ago had vanished entirely, replaced by the lethal, predatory stillness of a man who lived in the crosshairs. He was pulling his Sig Sauer from his shoulder holster with his right hand, keeping his left arm locked tightly against his side to protect the healing wound.
“Stay in the room,” Adrian ordered, his voice a low, terrifying hiss. “Under the bed. Do not move.”
“Adrian—!”
“Do it, Sarah!”
He slipped out into the hallway, pulling the bedroom door half-shut behind him.
The apartment was pitch black, but Adrian didn't need light. He knew the geometry of the hallway by heart—three paces to the corner, four paces to the kitchen archway.
Footsteps rushed up the fire escape outside the kitchen window. Glass shattered.
Volkov’s men.
They had tracked him here. The security detail downstairs must have been compromised, or the burner phone he used had pinged a relay tower before he turned it off. It didn't matter. They were inside.
A heavy shadow lunged through the kitchen doorway, holding a silenced submachine gun.
Adrian didn't hesitate. He raised his pistol and fired twice. The muffled thuds echoed through the small kitchen as the intruder dropped instantly, crashing backward over a kitchen chair.
Before the body hit the floor, a second man rounded the corner from the living room, firing blindly into the dark. Plaster exploded from the wall above Adrian’s head, showering his shoulders with white dust.
Adrian dropped to one knee, ignoring the searing fire that shot through his left shoulder from the sudden movement, and returned fire. The second man grunted, spinning around before collapsing against the coat rack near the front door.
Silence slammed back down over the apartment—heavy, thick, and smelling of cordite and copper.
Adrian remained on one knee for three seconds, his chest heaving, his heart hammering a violent, erratic rhythm against his ribs.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump-flutter. Stop.
For a terrifying second, his vision tunneled into a blinding white glare. The pain in his chest flared like an open furnace. He dropped his gun, clutching at his left side as the familiar, dreaded warning signs of his cardiomyopathy took hold—the dizziness, the cold sweat, the sudden, paralyzing absence of a steady pulse.
Not now, he thought, his knees buckling against the linoleum. Not tonight. I just found her.
Heavy footsteps echoed from the stairs outside the broken front door. More were coming.
“Adrian?”
Sarah’s voice cut through the ringing in his ears. The bedroom door creaked open, and she stepped out into the hallway, stopping dead in her tracks as she saw the two bodies lying on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and spreading dark pools of blood.
Then she saw Adrian kneeling against the kitchen counter, his face drained of all color, one hand clamped over his chest, gasping for air like a drowning man.
“Adrian!” She dropped to her knees beside him, grabbing his shoulders. “Oh my god, you’re bleeding—are you hit?”
“My heart,” he managed to gasp out, his fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt. “The... the defibrillator... in my pocket... internal... battery pack...”
Sarah didn't hesitate. She shoved her hand into the inside pocket of his trench coat, her fingers brushing against a cold, hard metal device with a small blinking green light and a manual override button.
Before she could press it, heavy boots thudded onto the landing outside the door.
“Clear the rooms!” a rough voice shouted from the hallway.
May you like
Vincent Russo’s voice roared back from the stairwell, accompanied by the deafening crack of automatic gunfire.
“Vince!” Sarah screamed toward the open doorway, throwing her arm around Adrian’s waist to keep him from collapsing completely onto the blood-slicked floor. “Vince, get in here! He’s dying!”
