Chapter 3
SCARLETT
The gunshot jerks through my soul, splitting my ear and I scream.
I can’t help it. The sound rips out of my throat involuntarily as Antonio’s body slams into the wall, too close that the blood is mere inches from me.
His gaze stares at his attacker, shocked, then turns to look at me with soulless eyes. His lips move. Barely, just the faintest whisper of sound that I shouldn’t be able to hear over the ringing in my ears from the gunshot.
“…saint…watches…”
The words are barely coherent. The words of a dying man.
He whispers again, then a gunshot rings again, and again, and my attacker crumples to the floor like someone cut his strings. His legs fold beneath him and he hits the expensive carpet with a thud that seems too quiet for what just happened.
He’s dead. Oh god, he’s dead.
Blood pools beneath him, spreading fast across the cream-colored carpet. Dark red. Almost black in the dim light. His eyes are still open but they’re going glassy, unfocused, staring at nothing.
Then his chest stops moving and he’s just gone. Life leaves his body like air from a deflated balloon. One second a person, the next just meat, blood and bone.
I’ve seen people die before. In the ICU, peacefully, surrounded by family. Sometimes surrounded my surgeons and doctors who tried their best but it still wasn’t enough. But this is different. This is violent and sudden and wrong in ways I can’t process.
And now the killer is going to shoot me too.
The thought cuts through my shock like ice water and suddenly I can move again. I scramble backward, my bare feet slipping in something wet.
Blood, I realize in horror. Antonio’s blood—and my back hits the wall hard enough to knock what little air I have left out of my lungs.
The man who just committed murder is still standing there. Tall and broad-shouldered, dark hair pushed back from his face, those winter-grey eyes find me and I forget how to breathe.
“P-Please!” I find myself sobbing. “Please don’t k-kill me.”
Why am I begging? He’s going to kill me anyway.
But I keep talking because maybe if I remind him I’m a person, maybe if I make him see me as human instead of just a witness, maybe—
“I won’t tell anyone. I swear. I didn’t see anything. I don’t know anything. Please.”
It’s all lies. I saw everything. I know his face. I could identify him in a heartbeat. But desperation makes liars of everyone.
He doesn’t respond. Just stands there with his gun loose in his hand, blood dripping from his knuckles, staring at me with those empty eyes.
Move. You have to move. Get up and run!
I try to stand but my legs won’t cooperate.
They’re shaking too hard, muscles turned to jelly from terror and the impending adrenaline crash.
My head is pounding from where Antonio slammed it against the wall earlier.
Everything hurts and I’m so tired and I just want this nightmare to end.
But not like this. Not with a bullet in my skull.
The killer takes a step toward me, and I press harder against the wall like I can somehow phase through it and disappear.
“Please,” I whisper again. “Please.”
He raises his gun. Points it directly at my face.
And I make a choice. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die with my eyes open. I’m not going to cower. I’m not going to beg for mercy from a man who clearly has none.
You want to kill me? Fine. But you’re going to remember my face.
So I force myself to meet his eyes. To stare right back at him even though every instinct is screaming at me to close my eyes and pray for it to be quick.
His finger rests on the trigger. Time stretches. Seconds feel like hours. I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, fast and loud. Can hear gunshots still echoing through the mansion as his men finish killing everyone else.
This is it. This is how I die.
My vision is blurry from the head trauma, but I keep my eyes locked on his. Grey eyes that look like storm clouds. Cold and merciless.
But then something changes. His gaze shifts. Travels down from my face to my torn scrubs, to the bruises forming on my arms, to my bare feet covered in blood that isn’t mine. Then back up to my face.
For just a second, just a heartbeat, something flickers in those dead eyes. Something I can’t identify. Something that might be recognition or rage or something else entirely. His jaw tightens. His grip on the gun shifts.
He’s going to do it. He’s—
Then unexpectedly, he lowers the gun.
I stop breathing completely.
“Disappear.” His voice is rough. Like he doesn’t use it much. “Before I change my mind.”
W-What?
I stare at him, unable to process what just happened. He’s letting me go? Why? Why would a man who just murdered someone in cold blood let a witness walk away?
It’s a trick. It has to be a trick.
But he steps aside. Clears the path to the door.
“Go,” he says again. Harder this time. “Now.”
I don’t wait for him to change his mind.
I scramble to my feet, nearly falling when my legs try to give out, and run. Past Antonio’s body, past the blood and destruction, through the splintered remains of the door.
The hallway is worse than the bedroom. Bodies everywhere. Antonio’s guards, I guess, are all dead. Shot or stabbed or beaten. The walls are painted with blood.
Don’t look. Just run.
But I can’t just run. Not yet.
Maya. Jennifer. Lisa. Carmen. Rachel.
The other girls.
Where are they?
My nurse training kicks in despite the terror screaming at me to flee. I check the first room I pass. Empty. The second. Empty too.
Where are they?
I’m running through the mansion now, throwing open doors, looking for any sign of the five girls I was locked up with. But every room is empty or full of bodies that aren’t theirs.
Moved. They must have been moved before the attack.
Gunshots ring out somewhere below me. Voices shouting in Italian. The sound of something heavy crashing to the floor.
You can’t help them if you’re dead. Run.
I force myself to abandon the search and head for the stairs. My bare feet are silent on the marble as I fly down them, taking them two at a time. The front door is ahead, massive and hanging open.
I burst through it into the New York night and the cold air hits me like a slap. I’m still wearing just my torn scrubs and bare feet and it’s freezing but I don’t stop.
I run down the long driveway, past expensive cars and manicured gardens, toward the gate that’s standing open. No guards. They’re all dead or fighting inside.
Don’t stop. Don’t look back. Just run.
I hit the street and my feet scream in protest as they meet rough pavement. Glass and pebbles cut into my soles, but I ignore it. Pain means I’m alive.
Where do I go? Police? No. They’ll ask questions I can’t answer. Hospital? They’ll call the police.
I just keep running, no destination in mind, just trying to put distance between me and that mansion of horrors.
But even as I run, Antonio’s dying whisper echoes in my head.
“…saint…watches…”
What does it mean? Was he trying to tell me something? Or was it just the random firing of a dying brain?
Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except getting away.
I turn a corner and nearly crash into a group of people spilling out of a building. Music pulses from inside, bass so heavy and loud I can feel it in my chest. Lights flash through the open door. It’s a club.
The bouncer looks at me—barefoot, clothing torn, covered in blood, and his eyes widen.
“Miss, are you—”
I push past him before he can finish. Into the crowd. Into the noise, chaos and darkness.
Hide. Blend in. Disappear like he told you to.
It’s a masked club. Half the people inside are wearing elaborate masks, faces hidden. Venetian style, feathered, jewelled. Anonymous. Perfect.
I grab a discarded mask from a table—black lace, delicate, and pull it on with shaking hands. It covers the top half of my face, hiding my identity.
Now I’m just another body in the crowd. Well, another body wearing torn scrubs, with blood all over but, drunk party people shouldn’t notice, right?
I push deeper into the club, past dancing people who are drunk and high and oblivious to the fact that I just watched a man die. That I’m covered in his blood. That I barely escaped with my life.
The music is too loud and the lights are too dim. Everything is too much, but it’s also perfect because it means no one is really looking at me.
I find the bathroom, my hands shaking as I do my best to wash the blood off my skin. It browns the soapy water, making me gag as I watch it drain down sink. It’s awkward and painful, but I get the job done and my body trembles as I stumble out of the bathroom.
Next, I find a dark corner and press my back against the wall, trying to catch my breath. Trying to process what just happened.
Antonio is dead. The other girls are gone. And a killer let me live.
None of it makes sense.
My hands won’t stop shaking. The body tremors are only getting worse, from the adrenaline crash, shock, terror and exhaustion. I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to my chest, trying to make myself as small as possible.
Breathe. Just breathe. You’re alive. You survived.
But for how long?
That man—the killer with the grey eyes—he let me go. But why? Men like that don’t show mercy. They don’t let witnesses walk away. There has to be a reason.
Maybe he’s hunting me right now. Maybe letting me run was part of the game. Maybe he’s waiting for me to feel safe before he strikes.
No. Stop. Don’t be paranoid. Think.
I force myself to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The way they taught us in nursing school for dealing with trauma.
You’re alive. You survived. That’s all that matters right now.
But what do I do now? I can’t go home. What if they know where I live? No hospital and no police.
I’m trapped and alone. With nowhere to go and no one to help me.
The music pounds through my body and I close my eyes, trying to think. Trying to come up with some kind of plan that doesn’t end with me dead in a ditch somewhere.
When I open my eyes again, I scan the crowd. Looking for threats. Looking for anyone who might be hunting me.
And that’s when I see him.
A man standing across the room. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Wearing a black mask that covers the upper half of his face.
He’s staring directly at me and my heart stops.
Something about the way he stands makes my skin prickle. The way he’s watching me with so much intensity and focus. Like a predator spotting prey.
No. You’re just being paranoid. You’re safe here. No one followed you.
But I can’t shake the feeling crawling up my spine. The masked man doesn’t move or approach. He just watches me from across the room with an intensity that makes it hard to breathe.
It’s not him. It can’t be him. He’s back at the mansion. He let you go.
But what if it is him? What if he sent his men after me to finish me off? What if this was his plan all along?
I should run. Should get up and leave right now. Find somewhere else to hide.
But my legs won’t cooperate. I’m frozen, pinned in place by his gaze, unable to look away.
And even through the fear and exhaustion and trauma, even through everything that just happened, I feel something else. Something I definitely shouldn’t be feeling right now.
Lust.
A pull. Like gravity. Drawing me toward him even though every instinct is screaming at me to run.
What the hell is wrong with me?
He’s probably the killer, or another human trafficker looking for a young girl to kidnap. He’s definitely dangerous. And I’m sitting here feeling…attracted?
I blame it on shock. Adrenaline making you feel things that aren’t real.
But it feels real. The way my heart is racing. The way heat is pooling low in my belly. The way I can’t stop staring at him even though I should be running. But I don’t move.
I just sit there against the wall, hidden in the shadows, staring back at the masked stranger who might be dangerous or might be nobody at all.
And I wonder if surviving tonight was actually a mistake.