Chapter 20 - The Open Door
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“We need to get out of the state,” Robert said urgently as we practically ran to his car after the hearing. “Agent Reynolds is arranging federal transport for you both to a secure facility in Montana tonight. You just need to pack your bags at the safe house.”
“He smiled, Mom,” Chloe hyperventilated in the backseat. “Damian isn't afraid of prison. He knows Elias will protect him.”
“Not anymore,” I promised, holding her tightly. “We are leaving. He will never touch you again.”
We drove back to the unmarked corporate apartment building. The sun was setting, casting long, dark shadows over the Atlanta skyline. We rode the elevator up in absolute silence, the tension thick enough to cut with a knife.
Robert stepped off the elevator first, reaching for his keys.
But as we approached our apartment down the long, quiet hallway, Robert stopped dead in his tracks. His hand reached instinctively for the holster on his ankle.
“Get back in the elevator,” Robert hissed, pushing me backward.
“What is it?” I asked, my blood running ice cold.
I looked past him. The heavy, steel-reinforced door of our supposedly impenetrable federal safe house was slightly ajar.
The deadbolts had been drilled out with surgical precision.
From the dark crack of the open doorway, the faint, unmistakable smell of cigarette smoke and expensive cologne drifted into the hallway.
A shadow moved inside the dark apartment.
“Hello, Margaret,” a chilling, gravelly voice echoed from the darkness of our living room. It wasn't Damian.
May you like
It was Elias Thorne.
And as the shadow stepped toward the doorway, holding a silenced pistol, I realized the real fight for our lives had only just begun.
