Chapter 2 - Stay Behind Me
“Don’t scream,” Dante said.
Patricia opened her mouth.
He looked at her.
“Especially you.”
Serena stared at his face as if she were searching for the exact moment he had started hating her.
He wanted to tell her he didn’t.
Instead, he asked, “Who’s in the elevator?”
Patricia’s eyes flicked toward the hallway.
“Carlo.”
“How many men?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“Two came with him downstairs.”
Dante moved beside the doorway, keeping himself out of sight.
A familiar voice called from the hall.
“Dante?
We have a security issue.”
Martin Hale.
The night captain.
A man Dante had trusted with the keys to his home.
Serena took one step forward.
Dante caught her wrist.
She stiffened.
He immediately loosened his grip.
“This way,” he whispered.
Something broke across her face.
Even now, with men outside preparing to kill him, he was careful not to frighten her.
Patricia stayed rooted beside the chair.
“They promised I could take her home.”
Dante looked back.
“Then go ask why they came early.”
Her lips parted.
Outside, Hale tried the study door.
The sunroom connected to a narrow pantry used by staff during private dinners.
Dante guided Serena through it.
Patricia followed.
Halfway down the passage, Serena stopped.
“My shoes.”
“You can walk barefoot.”
“There’s glass in the kitchen.
I broke a bowl earlier.”
He glanced at her robe, then at the dark passage.
She wasn’t panicking.
She was thinking.
He pulled a pair of flat shoes from the staff coat closet and set them in front of her.
“Good.
Keep telling me what I’m missing.”
A shot cracked through the hallway.
Wood splintered.
Patricia covered her mouth.
Dante pushed both women behind the pantry wall.
Carlo’s voice followed.
“Enough pretending.
Search the rooms.”
Dante’s phone lit again.
ELIAS: SERVICE STAIR. FLOOR BELOW. ALONE.
Elias Ward ran his daytime security team.
Dante had sent him home two hours earlier.
Serena saw the message.
“Can you trust him?”
“He warned me.”
“So someone wants you moving toward that stair.”
He looked at her.
She was right.
Dante typed a question only Elias would understand.
WHAT DID YOU BREAK IN ASPEN?
The answer arrived.
YOUR FATHER’S WATCH. YOU SAID IT WAS ALREADY BROKEN.
Dante opened the service door.
Then Carlo spoke again, close enough for every word to carry.
“Vincent said the wife comes back alive.”
Patricia exhaled.
May you like
Carlo continued.
“The mother doesn’t leave.”
