Chapter 4 - The River Safehouse
“Down!” Marco roared, grabbing me by the waist and tackling me and Lily to the floor just as the front windows exploded into a thousand glittering shards of glass.
A barrage of automatic gunfire tore through the cabin’s wooden walls, shredding the curtains, shattering the oil lamps, and sending splinters flying through the air like lethal shrapnel.
I covered Lily with my body, pressing her face into the hardwood floor, my hands covering her ears even though she couldn't hear the deafening roar of the assault.
Marco returned fire, leaning over the tipped kitchen table and discharging his weapon into the dark driveway through the shattered window frame. The sharp bang-bang-bang of his gun shook my chest.
“They’re flanking us!” Marco shouted over the noise, ejected shells clattering across the floor beside my face. “The back door! Maya, take Lily and get into the crawlspace under the floorboards!”
“I’m not leaving you!” I screamed back.
“You have the keycard!” Marco yelled, his shoulder bleeding where a glass shard had sliced through his jacket. “If Silas gets that card, everything Matteo fought for dies tonight! GO!”
I didn't argue. I grabbed Lily under her arms, pulling her toward the small pantry in the kitchen. Inside, under a stack of burlap sacks, was a rusted iron ring set into a wooden hatch.
I pulled the hatch open, revealing a tight, muddy crawlspace beneath the house that led toward the river bank.
“Go, Lily, crawl!” I signed frantically, pushing her into the dark opening.
Lily hesitated, reaching her hand back up to grab mine. Her eyes were wide with a silent scream.
“I’m right behind you!” I promised, squeezing her hand before shoving the cedar box inside her small jacket.
Suddenly, the firing stopped outside.
A heavy silence descended over the ruined cabin, broken only by the crackle of burning wood and the heavy thud of footsteps stepping onto the porch.
“Marco!” a smooth, chilling voice called out from the darkness. Silas. “Give me the girl and the accountant’s journal, and I’ll let you walk away with your life. You don't have to die for a dead man’s daughter.”
“Go to hell, Silas,” Marco barked.
A single, suppressed gunshot echoed through the house.
I heard Marco gasp—a wet, terrible sound—followed by the heavy thud of his body hitting the floor.
My heart stopped. I froze inside the pantry, my hand still holding the crawlspace hatch door, afraid to breathe, afraid to live.
The heavy leather boots stepped slowly into the kitchen, crunching over glass and spent bullet casings.
“I know you’re in here, Elena,” Silas’s voice whispered, sounding impossibly close, right outside the pantry door. “Your father was a very stubborn man. He thought he could play hero too. Look where it got him. A cold grave under six feet of concrete near the docks.”
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Tears ran silently down my face as I lowered myself inch by inch into the muddy crawlspace, gently pulling the hatch door shut above my head.
“You can hide tonight, little girl,” Silas whispered, his boots stopping right above my head on the pantry floorboards. “But you can’t hide from a ghost.”
