Chapter 4 - The Gun at My Neck
Roman hesitated for three agonized seconds, looking into his wife's clear, determined gaze.
For three years, he had treated her like glass, shielding her from the violent currents of his empire.
Now, she was bleeding for him, standing firm while gunfire echoed through the lower hallways.
"Behind the panel," Roman ordered Matteo, stepping into the narrow observation corridor beside the dressing room.
Corinne wrapped her white silk robe tightly over her bandages, masking the tremor in her hands.
She sat on the edge of the king-sized bed, forcing her breathing into a slow, measured rhythm.
The private elevator chimed with a polite, digital ring.
The polished steel doors slid open, and Everett walked out, gripping a matte-black automatic handgun.
His designer suit was dusted with drywall debris, and his hair was uncharacteristically disheveled.
When he saw Corinne sitting alone on the bed, wrapped in silk and bandages, his arrogant grin returned.
"So it was you," Everett sneered, stepping across the Persian rug. "At Pier Seventeen?"
"Roman was supposed to be there that night," Corinne answered evenly, her eyes locking onto his.
"I know," Everett replied, stopping six feet away. "You figured it out, didn't you?"
"You spent three weeks sticking your nose into numbers that had nothing to do with you," Everett said, his tone turning vicious.
"They became my business when two companies sent payments into the same account," Corinne countered, never looking away.
"You were supposed to be decorating banquet tables!" Everett spat, raising the weapon. "You're just Roman's little trophy."
Corinne let out a soft, mocking laugh that sent sharp daggers of pain into her broken ribs.
"There it is," she whispered. "The reason you lost. You still think I'm just Roman's wife."
Everett lunged forward, pressing the cold steel barrel of the handgun firmly against the side of her neck.
Behind the hidden wall, Roman’s silhouette shifted violently, but Matteo held him back with iron discipline.
"Open the safe," Everett hissed into her ear. "Open it, or I paint this silk robe red."
Corinne stood up slowly, every nerve ending screaming in protest as she walked toward the painting beside the fireplace.
She swung the oil canvas aside, revealing the biometric and keypad safe built into the reinforced wall.
"There are two codes, Everett," Corinne said calmly, raising her trembling fingers to the illuminated keys.
"Just punch the numbers!" he shouted, cocking the hammer of the gun.
Corinne didn't flinch; she entered a sequence that Roman had taught her on their wedding night.
It wasn't the code that unlocked the bearer bonds and offshore keys.
It was the failsafe protocol designed to lock every blast door in the house and purge the power grid.
The steel door clicked, but instead of swinging open, red emergency lights flashed across the ceiling.
May you like
A piercing siren wailed through the mansion, and heavy titanium shutters slammed down over the elevator and windows.
Everett turned in panic, and in that split second, Corinne drove her elbow hard into his wounded arm.
