Chapter 5 - The Ambush at Elm Street
"Ethan! Get under the bed! NOW!" I screamed, lunging across the hall and shoving my little brother into the small gap beneath his mattress.
The front door of my apartment crashed inward, the wooden frame splitting apart with a deafening bang.
Two large, heavy-set men wearing dark tactical gear and ski masks burst into the hallway, followed immediately by Victor Hayes.
Victor was no longer wearing his expensive suit. He wore a heavy leather coat, his face pale and twisted into an expression of desperate, unhinged violent obsession.
"Where is it, Maya?!" Victor roared, stepping over the shattered pieces of my front door. He held a sleek, silenced black handgun in his gloved right hand. "I heard you talking to Delgado! Where is the key to the storage locker?!"
I backed into the kitchen, my hand reaching blindly behind my back along the granite countertop, searching for anything—a heavy frying pan, a chef's knife, a glass bottle.
"You killed him, Victor," I spat, my voice shaking with adrenaline. "You murdered your own brother for money!"
"Arthur was a fool!" Victor yelled, taking a step toward the kitchen, gesturing violently with the firearm. "He was going to ruin everything! We spent ten years building Hayes Logistics, and he wanted to go to the District Attorney because of a few million dollars in offshore transfers! He was going to put me in prison!"
"So you framed my mother!" I backed up against the sink, my fingers wrapping around the cold handle of a cast-iron skillet resting on the stove. "You ruined her life! You ruined my life!"
"Caroline was an easy mark," Victor sneered, stepping into the kitchen entry. "She was taking heavy sleeping pills every night because of her clinical anxiety. All I had to do was slip two extra capsules into her wine glass during dinner, wait for Arthur to go to the kitchen for a glass of water, and slip behind him with the chef's knife."
He took another step closer, raising the gun directly at my chest.
"I didn't want to hurt you, Maya," Victor said, his thumb pulling back the hammer with a sharp click. "I paid for your college tuition! I gave you money every month! I took care of you!"
"You gave me blood money!" I screamed.
With everything I had, I swung the heavy cast-iron skillet upward in a terrifying arc, slamming the flat iron directly into Victor’s right wrist.
CRACK!
Victor let out a high-pitched howl of agony as his wrist snapped. The silenced pistol flew out of his hand, clattering across the linoleum tile and sliding under the refrigerator.
"Get her!" Victor shrieked, clutching his broken wrist against his chest.
One of the masked men lunged into the kitchen, grabbing me by my hair and throwing me violently against the refrigerator. My head slammed against the stainless steel, and dark spots exploded across my vision.
I fell to the floor, coughing, blood pooling in my mouth.
The second masked man began ripping through my coat pockets, pulling out the brass storage key I had taken from Dad’s jacket.
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"Got it, boss!" the man said.
Victor spat on the floor right beside my face, his eyes red and demonic. "Burn the apartment. Make it look like an electrical fire. Leave the kids inside."
