Chapter 4 - The Anatomy of Fear
By midnight, the storm outside the safehouse had turned into a full Manhattan blizzard, plastering the reinforced windows with white sleet. Inside, the only light came from the blue glow of the security monitors and the orange embers of the gas fireplace.
A sharp, gasping shriek tore through the silence of the loft.
Adrian was out of his chair before his brain could register the pain in his flank. He reached the guest bedroom in three strides, his hand instinctively drawing the small Walther PPK from his waistband.
Evelyn was jammed into the narrow triangular space between the wardrobe and the concrete wall, her knees pulled to her chin, her fingernails tearing at the cashmere sleeves of the sweater. Her eyes were wide, vacant, fixed on the shadow cast by the ceiling fan.
"Fire," she choked out, her breath coming in ragged, shallow whistles. "The curtains are catching. Adrian, the doors are locked from the outside. My mother is still in the study."
"Evelyn," Adrian said, dropping his gun onto the rug and sinking to his knees three feet away from her. He didn't reach out; he knew better than to touch a wild animal when it was cornered. "Look at the floor. It's concrete. Concrete doesn't burn."
She didn't hear him. She was back in Westchester, 2016, smelling the aviation fuel the Valenti soldiers had poured through the library vents.
Adrian took a deep, deliberate breath, making his voice as heavy and solid as the iron beams above them.
"The air is cold," he said.
"The windows are glass."
"You are thirty stories up."
"I am Adrian Kane, and no one enters this room without dying first."
He repeated the words like a mantra, over and over, until the wildness in her pupils began to recede, leaving behind the dull, exhausted glaze of reality. She blinked once, her gaze dropping to his unbuttoned shirt, where a small bead of fresh blood was seeping through his white bandage.
"You're bleeding again," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Because of me."
"I bleed because it's my job," Adrian said, leaning his spine against the wardrobe, ignoring the throbbing agony in his side. "You're not the one who shot me, Evelyn. Victor Valenti did that. And he’s the one who’s going to pay for the shirt."
She slowly let her legs unwind, her bare feet pressing against the cold hardwood. "Why did you stay? In the salon. You could have just given Théo the money and left me at a clinic."
Adrian looked out at the snow lashing the glass. "Ten years ago, my father told me that in our world, you only get one chance to save something that matters. He didn't take his chance with your father. He regretted it until the day he died."
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He turned his head to look at her, his olive skin stark against the dark wood.
"I’m not making my father's mistake," he said. "You saved my life in that alley, Evelyn. In my business, that makes you the owner of my debt. And I don't like owing anyone anything."
