Chapter 7 - The Intrusion of Heat
Danny woke without moving a muscle.
It was the ingrained instinct of a man who had survived three ambushes and two decades of gangland warfare: when your consciousness returns in the dark, you do not shift, you do not draw a sudden breath, and you do not blink. You assess the room through your skin, your ears, and your peripheral nervous system before your enemies realize you are no longer blind.
The master bedroom was pitch-black, save for the faint, silvery wash of moonlight cutting across the foot of the bed. The bedside lamp was extinguished. The grandfather clock in the distant gallery struck five in the morning—a low, resonant chime that vibrated faintly through the floor joists.
The room smelled different.
It did not smell solely of cedar, leather, and the faint, bitter metallic tang of his gun oil.
It smelled of clean linen, damp chestnut hair, and the faint, sweet warmth of lavender-scented soap.
And then, his central nervous system registered the thermal anomaly.
Pressed against his right side—directly along the uninjured expanse of his bare ribs, right beneath the black tattoo of an archangel’s wing—was an undeniable, radiating source of physical heat.
A soft, rhythmic breathing expanded and contracted against his skin.
Danny’s eyes snapped open in the dark.
The adrenaline hit his bloodstream with the concussive force of an explosive breach. Every survival instinct he possessed fired simultaneously. Someone had bypassed the outer perimeter. Someone had breached the private corridor. Someone had crossed the threshold of his master suite, avoided the creaking floorboards, and climbed onto the mattress while he was unconscious.
His paralysis meant he could not kick. He could not throw his weight forward with his hips to pin an assailant to the sheets.
He had only his upper body. And he had the weapon.
Without making a sound, without shifting his shoulders by a millimeter, Danny’s right hand moved.
His calloused fingers slid beneath the edge of the heavy pillow. The textured grip of the Kimber .45 settled into his palm like an old friend. His thumb swept down across the ambidextrous safety lever, disengaging the mechanical block with a tiny, oiled click that was entirely masked by the hum of the HVAC vent.
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He began to draw the steel from beneath the down.
He rotated his torso to the right, his left arm coming across his chest to establish a two-handed shooting platform, his gray eyes cutting through the gloom, ready to drive three rounds of hollow-point lead through the skull of whatever assassin had been sent to finish the work started on Michigan Avenue.
