Chapter 5 - The Line of Fire
The metallic click of Victor’s hand sliding inside his jacket felt like a gunshot in the silent office. Before I could even draw breath, Elias moved with a violent, terrifying speed that defied his frozen shock. He lunged across the mahogany desk, slamming his entire weight into Victor just as a suppressed pistol cleared the holster.
The two men crashed hard against the glass partition, the heavy pane groaning under the impact. Coffee spilled in a dark stain across the carpet, and the ceramic mug shattered into a hundred jagged pieces.
"Adeline! Get out!" Elias roared, his hands locked around Victor’s wrist, forcing the barrel of the gun upward toward the ceiling.
Panic surged through my veins, but my feet refused to retreat toward the open door. I looked around the room in a frenzy, my eyes catching the heavy brass paperweight resting near Julian's abandoned desk. Without thinking, I grabbed it, sprinting across the room just as Victor managed to knee Elias in the ribs, sending the mafia boss sprawling backward onto the floor.
Victor raised the weapon, his sights locking onto Elias's chest.
"End of the line, boss," Victor sneered, his finger tightening on the trigger.
I didn't hesitate. With a cry of sheer fury, I brought the heavy brass paperweight down across the back of Victor’s shoulder with all the strength I had left.
The unexpected blow threw Victor off balance. The gun went off with a muffled pop, the bullet shattering the high glass window and letting the freezing Boston wind roar into the office. Victor stumbled forward, dropping the weapon as he spun around to face me, a dark fury twisting his features.
Before he could lunge at me, Elias was back on his feet. With a brutal, bone-crunching right hook, Elias caught Victor squarely on the jaw. Victor crashed hard against the filing cabinets and slid unconscious onto the floor.
Heavy footsteps echoed wildly down the hallway outside—security guards responding to the gunfire.
Elias was breathing heavily, his suit jacket torn, blood trickling from a split lip, but his eyes were burning with an intensity I had never seen before. He looked down at the unconscious man who had betrayed him for years, then slowly turned his gaze toward me.
"You saved my life," Elias whispered, the words echoing the exact sentiment Daniel had spoken three years ago in a burning warehouse.
"We're even," I panted, my hands shaking as I dropped the heavy paperweight onto the desk.
The office doors flew open, and three armed guards rushed in, weapons drawn, stopping dead in shock at the sight of Victor unconscious on the floor and their boss standing beside me.
Elias straightened his posture, wiping the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. The cold, untouchable authority returned to his voice, razor-sharp and absolute.
"Lock down the building," Elias ordered the guards, his eyes fixed on the open doorway leading into the dark hallway. "Nobody leaves. And find Julian Cross. He couldn't have gotten far out of the city in this weather."
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As the guards moved to secure the perimeter, Elias turned back to me, his expression grim.
"Victor lied about one thing," Elias said quietly, stepping closer so the guards couldn't hear. "He said Daniel discovered the trafficking ring and was eliminated. But Julian was the one managing the logistics of those shipments. If Victor and Julian were running it behind my back, there's a shipping manifest locked in Julian's secondary off-site vault—a vault that contains the real truth about what happened to your brother the night of the fire."
