Chapter Two Guinevere
Chapter Two
Guinevere
When working failed to distract me, I scrubbed a hand over my face and collected my files, phone, and computer to pack away in my messenger bag.
It was almost midnight, and even though I knew sleep would elude me, as it had for weeks, it was clear my mind was too distracted to get any work done.
I could go home to the little apartment I’d rented above an antique shop near the U and binge-watch a few episodes of Slow Horses until my body gave in to sleep.
The building was so silent it almost hummed, a sentient emptiness that felt like a haunting.
It spooked me even though I told myself I was being silly.
There was a night guard in the lobby downstairs, and you needed a pass to get to any of the levels.
The only ghosts between these walls were my own.
But when the elevator stopped on the fourteenth floor instead of going straight to the basement parking garage, I was surprised. Even though we shared space with a number of high-profile businesses, it wasn’t usual for people to stay that late working.
Unless, like mine, their lives were imploding.
When the doors parted to reveal a relatively young man in a sharp suit, with a surprised, warm smile, I shouldn’t have felt cornered like an animal in the dark. It wasn’t even anything he did––nicely dressed, briefcase under one arm, that big, white-toothed smile to put me at ease.
It was something in me that rankled, something that Raffa had ignited.
Paranoia, maybe.
Or a heightened sense of self-preservation.
“Good evening,” the gentleman acknowledged as he stepped into the elevator.
Without really processing why, I shuffled closer to the doors, and then, just as they were closing, I slipped out. When I turned back to the doors, I caught a glimpse of the man inside frowning at me before the metal closed.
“You’re being ridiculous,” I muttered to myself, and I took a deep breath before pushing the button to call another elevator to the floor.
It only took another moment, but when it opened, there was another man inside.
The same man I had seen jogging in the park, loitering by the offices, inside the lobby this morning. Mr. Kirkpatrick.
“Hello, Guinevere,” he greeted me casually.
But there was nothing usual about a client being in the building at that hour.
I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten in or if he’d never left, hiding somewhere in the multistory tower until he knew I was alone.
“I’ll catch the next one,” I said, stepping back a little with a tremulous smile, trying to keep a level head even as my heart thumped rabbit-quick against my rib cage.
“I think you’ll take this one,” someone suggested behind me.
I whirled to find the man from the first elevator standing there, slightly out of breath, no doubt from running up the stairs to get back to my level. In one steady, raised hand, he held a matte black gun.
Fuck.
I threw myself low to the left, catching my balance on the wall before taking off into a sprint down the other corridor. There were two curses in Italian behind me, but I was too busy running for my life to translate what they yelled at each other as one or both of them came after me.
Our offices were laid out in an oval connected by a continuous hall. At one end were the elevators and the reception desk and at the other, a flight of staircases under an emergency exit. It was there that I ran, kicking off my heels so I could pound down the carpeted floor with better traction.
“I will shoot,” the man behind me panted.
Because of the curve of the hallway, I didn’t think he had a good shot at me, especially when I hugged the wall as I thrust forward. As if to test my theory, a shot blasted through the air, loud enough to ring my bell. The bullet embedded in the wall to my left, too wide.
He couldn’t get the shot off unless he got closer.
The red light of the emergency exit had never looked so welcoming. I crashed through the door and stared down the stairs, hoping to get at least a level between us before he entered the stairwell too.
I thanked God that I had started to take my physical fitness more seriously since returning home. Only the hours I’d spent at the gym and the dojo propelled my slight frame forward faster than the tall, athletic man on my heels.
I could hear the metallic bang of the door hitting the concrete wall as he blasted through it, steps clapping against the stairs as he raced after me.
But I didn’t look back.
Fear wasn’t a noose around my throat but the wind at my back, forcing me forward with a clarity of purpose that eradicated my panic.
I had to get away.
There was no other option.
I hadn’t fought so hard to get to twenty-three years old only to die because of some goon with a gun who was coming after me for God knew what.
If I could just get to the lobby and the night security guard, I had a chance of getting away.
Another shot rang out, a thunderous boom in the echo chamber of the stairwell and a click as the bullet ricocheted off the banister.
I pushed hard, the taste of metal on the back of my tongue like my lungs were working so hard they were bleeding.
Eleventh floor.
Tenth.
Ninth.
I was gaining distance on him.
He was in a suit and slick-soled shoes, trying to maneuver his big body around the tight turns of the staircase.
I was barefoot in wide-legged wool trousers, with a slight enough frame to let gravity do half the work in throwing me down the stairs, even with the heavy bag banging against my hip.
Seventh.
Sixth.
Fifth.
My breath was a harsh expletive. My pulse roared in my ears.
Another shot rang out.
Pain like the bite of a horsefly stung against the side of my head.
I blinked away the smarting tears of pain, but a few steps later I slipped in something and looked down to see splatters and smears of blood from where I’d stepped in it.
The blood was mine.
Fatigue started to eat away at the adrenaline, leaving room for fear to bloom in its wake.
I wasn’t going to make it.
Behind me, my pursuer was starting to close the gap, and I still had four floors to go.
I thought of my parents finding out in the morning that I’d been killed in the office. Of the last words my dad and I had spoken to each other. Of them grieving the loss of their last living child.
Of the fact that if I died, I would never see Raffa again even if I wanted to.
Thinking quickly, I slammed open the door to the fourth floor and threw my bag into the hall. Then, on light feet, going much more slowly than I wanted to but without making any sound, I slunk down the stairs, keeping to the wall so that I wasn’t visible from above.
My heart beat in my throat as I crept down, waiting for my chaser to hit the fourth floor and, hopefully, take the bait.
His loud footsteps stuttered at the fourth floor, and then there was a bang as he wrenched open the door.
I pushed my tired body off the wall and sprinted down the last three flights of stairs without worrying about noise.
He’d taken the false lead.
When I practically fell out the door into the marble lobby, I was already yelling for help through gasping breaths.
No one responded.
I pinched at the cramp in my side and walked forward to peer around one of the thick pillars obscuring my view of the security desk.
The only sight that greeted me was a pool of lacquered blood seeping out from behind the desk and across the polished marble floor.
I sucked in a breath of shock a moment before the cold kiss of metal pressed into the base of my skull.
“Did you kill him?” I asked, surprised by the firmness of my voice.
The man behind me, presumably Kirkpatrick, though that was obviously a fake name, shifted his weight as if caught off guard by my reaction to being held at gunpoint.
“Who?”
“The night guard,” I said. “His name is Pedro. He has two daughters.”
He made a noise of scorn in the back of his throat and gripped my shoulder so hard it ached before marching me toward the elevators.
While we waited for one to arrive, he turned me to face him, readjusting the gun to press into the soft meat on the underside of my jaw. His expression shuttered when he saw the wound to my temple.
I hissed when he touched it gently, his fingers coming away red. Now that the adrenaline was receding, I could feel the hot throb of pain at the side of my head and the sticky wetness like drying paint along my cheek, jaw, and neck.
“You should not have run,” he repeated with a cluck of his tongue, the way a mother might reprimand a child. “They will not be happy with this.”
“Who?” I demanded, stepping closer despite the weapon at my throat.
Kirkpatrick scowled at me, but the elevator doors opened before he could respond, and the second man stepped out. He was sweat slicked and disheveled, still breathing hard as he shot me a furious look.
“They said you were sick,” he snapped in heavily accented Italian.
“Who?” I asked again, but they were wedging me between them and pushing me into the elevator.
Even though I tried to resist, I was a five-foot-three, 110-pound girl against two six-foot-plus muscle-bound gangsters. There was no way, now that they’d caught me, that I could break free.
Still, the moment the elevator doors closed, I gathered the last of my strength and went absolutely berserk.
Leveraging my weight against their hands locked on my arms, I kicked up my legs against the metal doors and gave a mighty push, shoving both men into the back wall.
My nails, honed to pretty, sharp points and painted Raffa’s favorite red, dug into the skin of the hands holding me, puncturing the flesh and raking up to the wrists.
“Porco Dio,” Kirkpatrick cursed, releasing me with one hand only to lash out with the other and slap me hard across the side of my face.