Chapter 7 - THE SILENT SIGNALThe phone was pressed against my ear.
My hand was shaking so badly I could barely hold it.
“Put it on speaker,” Viktor ordered, watching me like a hawk from the front seat.
I tapped the speaker icon.
The phone rang twice.
Then Gabriel’s voice came through.
“Hannah? Are you alright? Daniel said—”
“I’m fine, Gabriel,” I said, forcing my voice to remain even.
“I just... I realized I left the key at my old apartment. I went back to get it.”
Silence on the other end of the line.
A long, agonizing silence.
Gabriel knew my apartment was a crime scene.
He knew I would never go back there alone.
“Your old apartment?” Gabriel asked.
His voice was entirely neutral, but I could hear the razor-sharp focus beneath it.
“Yes,” I said, glancing at Viktor.
“I’m standing right outside the door now. I’m going inside to grab it.”
“Which door, Hannah?” Gabriel asked.
The question sounded simple.
It was a trap.
It was the emergency passphrase we had discussed briefly at the hospital.
Which door meant: Are you compromised?
“The red door,” I said clearly.
My apartment door was white.
“The red door at the end of the hall.”
Gabriel understood instantly.
“Stay right there, Hannah,” Gabriel said smoothly.
“I’m sending help.”
Viktor grabbed the phone from my hand and ended the call.
He smirked.
“Good girl. See how easy that was?”
He tossed the phone out the window into the wet highway.
“Now, we wait for Gabriel to come running.”
Thirty minutes later, the SUV pulled into the abandoned industrial rail yard on the outskirts of Chicago.
Rain hammered against the rusted corrugated metal roofs of the old warehouses.
I was dragged out of the vehicle and shoved into a damp, concrete room.
A single overhead bulb flickered casting long, dancing shadows.
Viktor sat on a wooden crate, lighting a cigar.
“Gabriel loves his little projects,” Viktor muttered, blowing a ring of smoke into the damp air.
“First his dead wife. Now his deaf daughter. And now, a stubborn waitress.”
“You’re insane,” I spat, wiping rainwater from my face.
Viktor laughed.
“I’m a businessman, Hannah. Gabriel is the one who let sentimentality cloud his judgment.”
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from the main entrance of the warehouse.
Bang!
The heavy steel doors blew inward in a shower of sparks and smoke.
Footsteps echoed across the concrete floor.
Heavy, deliberate, and entirely unafraid.
“Vance!” Gabriel’s voice boomed through the warehouse.
Viktor stood up slowly, a cruel smile spreading across his face.
“Well, look who decided to show up.”
Two of Viktor’s guards pushed me to my knees and shoved a pistol against the back of my head.
Gabriel stepped into the light of the flickering bulb.
He was alone.
His left shoulder was still bandaged under his dark coat.
His face was bruised from the crash.
And his eyes were filled with cold, calculating fury.
“Let her go, Viktor,” Gabriel said, stopping twenty feet away.
“Drop your weapon, Gabriel,” Viktor countered, signaling his guard to push the barrel harder against my skull.
“Or the girl dies right here.”
Gabriel slowly unclipped his pistol and let it drop to the concrete.
It made a heavy, metallic clatter.
“Smart boy,” Viktor grinned.
“Now, hand over the green folder and the key.”
Gabriel reached into his coat pocket.
He pulled out a thick manila envelope and dropped it on the floor.
“It’s all there,” Gabriel said.
Viktor nodded to one of his men.
“Go get it.”
The guard stepped forward, reaching down to pick up the envelope.
May you like
That was the exact moment Gabriel smiled.
[CLIFFHANGER: JUST AS THE GUARD REACHES FOR THE ENVELOPE, THE WAREHOUSE LIGHTS SUDDENLY GO BLACK, AND AUTOMATIC GUNFIRE ERUPTS FROM THE RAFTERS.]
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