Chapter 2 - THE BULLET THROUGH THE GLASS
The shot shattered the window above my head.
I dropped.
Adrian fired once toward the flash outside.
Victor threw himself behind a chair.
Cold air and snow blasted into the drawing room.
“Floor!” Adrian barked.
I was already there.
A second shot hit the wall.
Then nothing.
The darkness felt huge.
I crawled toward Adrian.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Not from that.”
His side wound had opened again.
“Can you move?”
“Yes.”
He lied.
I could hear it.
Victor whispered from across the room, “There’s a panic room behind the library.”
Adrian answered, “You’re not invited.”
Another shot.
This one lower.
Someone outside knew where the furniture sat.
That meant plans.
Or cameras.
I looked at the black security monitor.
Manual override.
Someone inside had killed the cameras.
Someone outside had positioned a shooter.
Victor’s stolen phone.
Julian.
Elena.
The names stacked faster than my brain could organize them.
Adrian grabbed my sleeve.
“North hallway. On three.”
“You can’t run.”
“Neither can you in those shoes.”
I looked at my house slippers.
Fair.
“One.”
I grabbed the medical kit.
“Two.”
Victor whispered, “You’re leaving me?”
Adrian replied, “Tempting.”
“Three.”
We moved.
Adrian made it six steps before his knees buckled.
I caught him badly.
He outweighed me.
But I had dragged him through snow.
Pride had already left the building.
I put his arm over my shoulders.
“Lean.”
“I don’t lean.”
“You are currently leaning.”
He almost laughed.
Maybe fever.
We reached the hallway.
Victor followed.
Adrian did not shoot him.
Yet.
The library sat across the central foyer.
Too exposed.
Instead I pulled Adrian toward the service corridor.
He looked at me.
“Where?”
“Laundry room.”
Victor actually said, “That’s your plan?”
I turned.
“Would you prefer the room with windows?”
He shut up.
The laundry room had one narrow exterior vent, no windows, a heavy fire door, and enough shelves to build cover.
I locked us in.
Adrian sat on the floor because I made him.
Victor stayed by the opposite wall.
I examined Adrian.
Pulse rapid.
Breathing shallow.
His fever had climbed.
He needed a hospital.
We had none.
I needed to reduce heat loss, manage the wound, monitor for shock, and figure out why a mafia boss with a probable concussion was trying to solve his wife’s murder between shivers.
“Stop thinking,” I said.
Adrian looked at me.
“What?”
“You look like you’re trying to kill someone using concentration.”
Victor muttered, “That usually works.”
Adrian ignored him.
“Phone.”
I handed over Elena’s phone.
He stared at it.
The lock screen showed no photograph.
Only a date.
April 17.
Adrian went still.
“What?”
“Elena died April seventeenth.”
Victor looked away.
Adrian opened recent calls.
One number repeated.
No contact name.
He called.
I grabbed his wrist.
“Are you insane?”
“Yes.”
The call rang.
Once.
Twice.
Someone answered.
No voice.
Adrian said, “Julian.”
Silence.
Then a woman spoke.
“You always guess your brother first.”
Adrian stopped breathing.
The voice came through the tiny speaker.
Female.
Low.
Familiar to him.
His face lost all color.
“Elena?”
My skin went cold.
Victor closed his eyes.
The woman laughed softly.
“No.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“Who is this?”
“You should know.”
“I don’t.”
“That was always the problem.”
The call ended.
Adrian stared at the screen.
I said, “Was it her?”
“No.”
“You hesitated.”
“Because it sounded like her sister.”
Victor looked up sharply.
Adrian saw.
“Elena had a sister?” I asked.
“Half-sister.”
“Name?”
“Camille Voss.”
Victor swore.
Adrian’s attention snapped to him.
“What?”
Victor shook his head.
“Nothing.”
Adrian raised the gun.
“Try again.”
Victor leaned back.
“Camille worked with Elena before the marriage.”
“Doing what?”
“Compliance.”
“For Cross Freight?”
“Yes.”
Adrian looked at me.
I already understood enough.
Financial compliance.
Internal records.
Access.
“Where is Camille now?” I asked.
Victor said, “Dead.”
Adrian’s laugh held no humor.
“Body?”
Victor looked at him.
“Confirmed.”
“Good. We’re improving.”
Despite the situation, I almost smiled.
Adrian looked at me.
I became serious.
Victor continued.
“She died in a boating accident two years before Elena.”
Adrian said, “I saw the report.”
“Julian arranged it.”
The room went silent.
Adrian’s eyes sharpened.
“What does that mean?”
“Your brother handled the investigation.”
“Why?”
“Because Camille was working for him.”
Adrian stared.
Victor closed his eyes.
“This started before Elena.”
“Start where?”
Victor took a breath.
“Your father created a reserve fund.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
“Which one?”
“Cross Continuity Trust.”
I had never heard of it.
Obviously.
Victor continued.
“It controls emergency ownership rights in Cross Freight, the private security companies, three real-estate groups, and several family properties.”
“Who are the trustees?”
“You. Julian. Elena was one.”
Adrian went still.
“My wife?”
“Yes.”
“She never told me.”
“She wasn’t supposed to.”
Adrian’s jaw flexed.
“Why?”
“Because your father created the trust to activate if one brother tried to remove the other.”
Sibling paranoia codified into finance.
It sounded exactly like rich criminal families.
Victor continued.
“Elena discovered Julian was diverting assets through it.”
“When?”
“Six months before she died.”
Adrian’s face became unreadable.
“She confronted him.”
“Yes.”
“And then she was kidnapped.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Victor looked at him.
Adrian’s voice dropped.
“She wasn’t taken because of me.”
“I don’t know.”
“She was taken because she found Julian.”
Victor remained silent.
That was close enough.
I looked at Adrian.
The story he had built his grief around was changing in real time.
He had believed Elena died because his enemies wanted him.
Now maybe she died because his own brother wanted silence.
“Why didn’t you tell him?” I asked Victor.
He looked at me.
“Because Julian owned my debt.”
Of course.
Always leverage.
Gambling?
Family?
I did not care yet.
Adrian said, “What debt?”
“My son.”
“You said you don’t have a daughter.”
“I have a son.”
Victor looked at the phone.
“Leukemia. Experimental treatment overseas. Julian paid.”
The ugly architecture appeared.
Not loyalty.
Pressure.
“He told me Elena’s second phone had to disappear,” Victor said. “I kept it.”
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
Adrian’s expression turned contemptuous.
“And tonight?”
“I was supposed to bring it to him.”
“You were supposed to kill me.”
“No.”
“The messages say finish it.”
“They were already on the phone when he gave it back.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“You met Julian during the storm?”
“He came through the garage tunnel.”
Adrian went still.
“There is no garage tunnel.”
Victor looked almost apologetic.
“There is.”
That landed.
A hidden entrance in Adrian’s own estate.
Known by Julian.
Maybe built by their father.
Maybe used before.
I thought about Elena’s kidnapping outside the estate.
What if she had never been taken from outside?
What if the estate itself had been compromised?
I asked, “Who triggered the rear-gate alarm?”
Victor answered immediately.
“Not me.”
Adrian looked at him.
“Then who?”
A heavy metallic sound came from behind the wall.
The laundry shelves trembled.
Victor whispered, “The tunnel.”
Adrian stood too fast.
Nearly fell.
I caught him.
He looked furious at his own body.
“Where does it open?”
Victor pointed toward the far wall.
“Old service pantry.”
Ten feet away.
The doorknob turned.
I grabbed a detergent bottle and the fire extinguisher.
Adrian looked at me.
“Really?”
“I’m improvising.”
The door opened.
A man stepped in.
Black winter gear.
Gun raised.
I sprayed the fire extinguisher directly into his face.
He cursed.
Adrian fired once.
The man dropped the weapon.
Victor kicked it away.
A second man appeared.
Victor tackled him.
For a few seconds the laundry room became noise, powder, metal, and violence.
Then silence.
Both attackers were alive.
One wounded.
One unconscious.
Adrian leaned against the dryer.
I grabbed him.
“You’re done.”
“I decide when I’m done.”
“Your blood pressure disagrees.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
He looked at me.
The sentence hung there.
I should not have said it.
Victor, panting on the floor, looked fascinated.
I pretended nothing happened.
We searched the attackers.
No identification.
One carried a small radio.
I pressed the transmit button.
Static.
Then a voice.
“Status?”
Adrian took it.
“Failed.”
Silence.
The voice returned.
Julian Cross.
Even I recognized him.
“Adrian?”
Adrian’s face became stone.
“Hello, brother.”
A pause.
Then Julian laughed softly.
“You’re harder to kill than Elena.”
Adrian stopped breathing.
Victor looked away.
Julian continued.
“But fever should help.”
I stared.
He knew about the fever.
Meaning Adrian had not simply become sick after exposure.
Someone expected it.
I looked at the wound.
The cut.
The steel.
“What was on the awning?” I whispered.
Adrian looked at me.
Julian heard.
“Smart maid.”
My skin went cold.
He continued.
“Ask her what happens when a dirty wound meets a man already exhausted.”
Infection.
Maybe deliberate contamination.
Not sophisticated poisoning.
Just bacteria.
Rust, soil, sewage.
A wound designed to become a medical crisis during a storm.
Adrian’s face became lethal.
Julian said, “You should have sent her back the first day.”
Then the radio went dead.
Adrian stared at me.
I looked at the wound.
Redness spreading.
Heat.
Swelling.
Not good.
“He needs antibiotics,” I said.
Victor nodded toward the lower level.
“Medical safe.”
Adrian looked at him.
“What medical safe?”
Victor laughed bitterly.
“You really don’t know your own house.”
And that was when I understood something terrifying.
The estate had not been Adrian’s fortress.
It had been a stage built by his family.
Doors he did not know.
Accounts he did not know.
Medical supplies he did not know.
A trust his wife had joined without telling him.
A brother who could walk through walls.
May you like
Adrian Cross had spent years believing security meant control.
But someone else had been holding the blueprints.
