Chapter 2 - Into the Dark
The weight of six-foot-three of solid muscle, leather, and dead weight nearly crushed Ava’s spine as she heaved Roman Black off the Persian rug.
He let out a guttural scream that he choked back into his own throat, his forehead pressing hard against her neck, his sweat burning her skin. Blood gushed fresh from the wound, drenching the side of her apron as they staggered across the marble foyer toward the hidden panel behind the grand staircase.
"Sophie! Grab my bag!" Ava yelled over her shoulder.
The little girl scrambled, grabbing Ava’s worn canvas backpack from the floor and sprinting after them like a small shadow.
Ava kicked the hidden wooden panel open. A narrow flight of stone stairs descended into total darkness beneath the mansion. As soon as the three of them cleared the threshold, Ava reached back and pulled the heavy oak door shut, pulling the deadbolt into place just as the front doors of the mansion were kicked open above them.
Boots. Heavy, tactical boots echoed across the marble floor directly above their heads.
"Search the ground floor!" a harsh, unfamiliar voice shouted from above. "The boss said Roman didn't make it out! Find the girl!"
Ava’s blood ran ice-cold. Those weren't paramedics. Those weren't Chicago police officers.
The 911 call had been intercepted.
Roman leaned heavily against the stone wall of the subterranean passageway, his breathing ragged and wet. "Told you..." he whispered, a grim, bloody smile touching his pale lips. "No... cops."
"Shut up," Ava hissed, sliding her shoulder under his arm again. "Keep moving."
The tunnel led three hundred yards beneath the estate, opening into a concealed detached garage hidden inside an old carriage house at the edge of the woods. Parked inside was an unbranded, matte-black armored SUV.
Ava lowered Roman onto the concrete floor beside the vehicle. He slumped back against the tire, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, his skin turning a ghostly blue-gray.
"He's going into hypovolemic shock," Ava said, her nursing training taking over completely. She unzipped her backpack, pulling out her small personal medical kit—a kit she carried everywhere containing trauma shears, gauze, medical tape, and a bottle of iodine she had bought for nursing clinicals.
She dropped to her knees beside him. "Sophie, hold this flashlight. Keep it steady on his stomach."
The five-year-old girl knelt beside her, holding the small plastic flashlight with both hands, her lip trembling, but her eyes fixed on her father. "Is Daddy sleeping?"
"He's resting," Ava lied softly.
Using her trauma shears, Ava sliced Roman’s silk shirt open from collar to hem. The wound was horrific. The knife handle protruded from his left abdomen, surrounded by dark, venous blood that pulsed rhythmically with his faint heartbeat.
"I have to stabilize the blade," Ava murmured to herself. "If I pull it, he dies. If I leave it loose, transport will kill him."
She took two thick rolls of gauze from her kit, wrapping them tightly around the base of the knife handle to form a bulky stabilization dressing. She bound it tightly to his torso using elastic medical tape, pressing down with all her weight to create direct pressure on the internal vessel.
Roman groaned, his fist striking the concrete floor, but he didn't wake up.
Ava reached into his leather jacket pocket, finding a heavy brass key fob. She pressed the unlock button. The armored SUV chimed softly, its headlights cutting through the dark garage.
"Help me get him into the back, Sophie," Ava said.
It took three excruciating minutes of pulling, pushing, and hauling, but Ava managed to slide Roman’s massive body onto the flat leather floor of the SUV's trunk. She buckled Sophie into the back seat, threw her blood-soaked apron into a trash bin, and climbed into the driver’s seat.
She started the engine. It purred with a low, silent rumble.
Ava looked at herself in the rearview mirror. Her face was smeared with Roman Black’s blood. Her hands were shaking so hard she could barely hold the steering wheel.
She was a waitress who made twelve dollars an hour. She had eighty-seven dollars in her pocket.
And she was now fleeing a crime scene with a critically wounded mafia boss and his terrified daughter.
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"Where are we going, Ava?" Sophie asked from the back seat, holding her stuffed elephant tightly.
Ava put the SUV in drive, staring out at the dark forest trail ahead. "Somewhere nobody knows us."
