Chapter 10 - SILENT SHADOWS AND RECKONING
The sudden explosion of noise and pulsing red light shattered the quiet standoff at Suite 4227.
Frank’s head snapped toward Clare, his eyes widening in fury as he realized the entire floor was about to be flooded with hotel staff and emergency responders.
That fraction of a second was all Nicholas needed.
Before Frank could raise his gun through his coat pocket, Nicholas stepped forward, his left hand launching out like a piston to grab Frank's throat. With terrifying, fluid power, Nicholas slammed the larger man backward against the heavy doorframe of Suite 4225.
Frank gasped, his suppression-equipped handgun slipping from his pocket and clattering harmlessly onto the carpet runner.
Nicholas leaned in close to Frank’s ear, his face illuminated by the pulsing red strobe lights.
"Tell my uncle," Nicholas growled, his voice cutting through the blaring alarm, "that when I come back for his seat, I won't be using a suppressor."
Nicholas drove a sharp, short knee into Frank's midsection, dropping the hitman to his knees on the carpet. Nicholas reached down, snatched Frank's fallen handgun off the floor, and slid it into his own trousers.
He turned his head sharply toward Clare.
Clare was standing by her broken glass case, her hands trembling, her chest heaving as the alarm continued to roar.
Nicholas looked at her across the forty-second-floor corridor. There was no anger in his eyes—only a deep, profound respect for a woman who had just risked her own safety to tilt the scales in his favor.
He gave her a single, slow nod—an unwritten pact made under the pulsing red lights of the Drake-Meridian Hotel.
"Go, Clare!" Nicholas shouted over the alarm. "Run!"
Clare didn't hesitate. She turned, pushed open the heavy steel fire exit door, and began sprinting down the concrete stairs toward the street level below.
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Behind her, inside Suite 4227, Nicholas Duca pulled his heavy leather travel bag from the closet, strapped his shoulder holster across his scarred chest, and stepped out into the service elevator alcove before the first security guards reached the floor.
As Clare burst through the ground-floor exit doors into the bright, warm Chicago sunlight overlooking Lake Michigan, she pulled her master key card from her pocket and dropped it into a municipal drain, leaving the ghost of Suite 4227 behind her forever.
