Chapter 4 - Shadows in the Hallway
Matteo moved with terrifying, predatory speed.
In a fraction of a second, he dropped into a low combat stance, his hand sliding beneath the discarded jacket on the chair and pulling out a matte-black Sig Sauer pistol with a suppressor already screwed onto the barrel.
“Get behind me,” he hissed.
“My studio—,” I started, panic seizing my throat.
“Quiet!” he barked, grabbing my arm and yanking me behind the heavy oak partition of the treatment room.
From the front reception area came the soft, muffled sound of wet shoes stepping onto the maple flooring. Two sets of footsteps. Heavy, deliberate, professional. They weren't hiding their entry anymore; they knew the lock was bypassed, and they were hunting.
“Boss says the girl is here,” a gruff voice whispered from the hallway near the front desk.
“Check the back rooms. Leave no trace. The package needs to look like a break-in gone wrong.”
My blood ran ice cold. They weren't just here for answers. They were here to clean house—starting with me, ending with whatever evidence my father left behind.
Matteo slipped out from behind the partition, melting into the shadows of the dim corridor like smoke. I pressed my back against the wall, my hand fumbling over the counter until my fingers brushed against a heavy glass bottle of massage oil. I gripped it by the neck, my knuckles turning white.
A shadow fell across the doorway of room two.
A man in a black tactical windbreaker stepped into the amber light of the salt lamp, holding a suppressed pistol at chest height. He scanned the empty massage table, his brow furrowing.
“Clear,” he muttered over a comms mic clipped to his collar.
He took one step further into the room.
That was his mistake.
Matteo dropped from the ceiling rafters above the doorway, landing on the intruder’s shoulders with the crushing force of an avalanche. The man hit the tile floor with a violent crash, his weapon skidding across the floor toward my feet.
Before the first intruder could recover, a second man rushed down the hallway, shouting curses in Russian.
I didn't think. I lunged forward, grabbed the fallen pistol from the floor—it felt impossibly heavy and cold in my untrained hands—and pointed it with shaking arms toward the doorway.
“Drop it!” I screamed, my voice cracking with adrenaline.
The second man stopped dead in his tracks, turning his weapon toward me.
Crack.
A silenced shot punched a hole through the drywall an inch from my ear, showering my shoulder with white plaster dust. I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled the trigger.
The recoil nearly dislocated my wrist.
The bullet shattered the glass display case behind the intruder, sending jade stones and aromatherapy bottles raining down over his head. Stunned by the unexpected gunfire, he turned and bolted back down the hallway toward the front exit.
Within seconds, the studio went dead silent again, save for the heavy, ragged breathing echoing in the small room.
I opened my eyes.
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Matteo stood over the first intruder, who was unconscious on the floor, pinning him down with a heavy boot. Matteo didn't look at the fallen man; his dark, piercing eyes were fixed entirely on me.
“Remind me,” Matteo said, a grim, humorless smile touching his lips, “never to get on your bad side, Miss Monroe.”
