Chapter 9 - Turning the Iron Key
Daniel Mercer blinked, his mind struggling to process the command through the thick fog of his terror. “Sir… lock… lock the door? We have guests still dining, the lunch service—”
“Did I stutter, Daniel?” Adrian asked. The tone did not rise by a single decibel, but the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
Daniel did not answer. He turned on his heel like a marionette whose strings had been violently jerked, stumbling over his own feet as he rushed toward the grand brass-and-glass revolving doors that led to the Michigan Avenue entrance.
The two private security guards in dark overcoats stationed by the coat check stepped aside, their expressions impassive, their hands folded behind their backs. They did not interfere; they belonged to Voss’s private perimeter detail, and they had recognized the command before the manager had even crossed the floor.
Daniel reached the threshold with trembling hands. He reached into the inner frame of the heavy glass doors, pulled the primary brass deadbolts from their recesses, and turned the heavy iron key.
Clack.
The sound of the deadbolt sliding home was deep, heavy, and resonant. It echoed through the vaulted ceiling of The Linden Room with the sickening finality of a prison cell closing at midnight. Sixty wealthy diners, four aldermen, two federal judges, and eight kitchen staff were now locked inside the dining room with Adrian Voss, cut off from the noise and protection of the Chicago streets.
A woman at Table Seven let out a stifled, terrified gasp, her hand clutching her pearls. No one moved. No one dared to reach for a phone. To pull out a phone in front of Adrian Voss while a room was locked was an invitation to have that phone—and the hand holding it—broken on the marble.
Sophie stood her ground. Her heart was beating violently against her ribs, a wild, rhythmic drumbeat that she could feel in her fingertips, but she refused to step backward. Her fingers tightened around the worn leather strap of her handbag, her knuckles turning white against the scuffed grain. She had spoken the truth, and if that truth was about to cost her more than her job, she would face it on her feet.
Adrian slowly turned back toward her.
He stood three paces away, his tall, muscular frame silhouetted against the bright, locked glass of the front entrance. The autumn sun hit the side of his dark hair, illuminating the faint silver at his temples and the sharp, unyielding edge of his jaw. He looked at Sophie Carter not with anger, but with an intense, unreadable curiosity—the expression of a man who had spent forty years looking for a single spark of pure gold in a city made entirely of ash, and had just found it kneeling on the floor of a dining room.
“Miss Carter,” Adrian said, his voice quiet, clear, and perfectly steady against the absolute silence of the room.
Sophie drew in a slow, deep breath, her chin lifting another fraction of an inch. “Mr. Voss.”
May you like
Adrian took a single step closer, his eyes holding hers with an intensity that made the breath catch in her throat.
“Before you leave,” Adrian said, his voice dropping into a register that was meant solely for her ears, though every soul in the room strained to hear it, “there is something you need to know about Mrs. Ellis.”
