Chapter 2 - The Convoy into the Slum and the Smoke of the Past
The two black armored Cadillac Escalades cut through the flooded, wind-swept streets of downtown like a pair of predatory fish slicing through dark water.
Inside the lead vehicle, the leather interior was heated to a comfortable seventy-two degrees, a sharp contrast to the freezing misery of the storm raging outside.
Emma Carter sat in the back seat, wrapped securely in a heavy, cashmere-lined wool blanket that belonged to Ethan Blackwood himself.
She held a silver spoon in one hand and a china mug filled with rich chicken broth in the other, sipping the hot liquid with wide-eyed awe as she periodically glanced sideways at the man sitting beside her.
Ethan Blackwood—the terrifying syndicate kingpin whose name made grown men sweat—was currently sitting quietly, watching her with a level of intense, focused care that would have shocked anyone who knew his reputation.
“Is it good?” Ethan asked, noticing her gaze.
Emma nodded vigorously, swallowing her sip of broth.
“It’s the best thing I ever tasted, mister. Better than canned soup.”
“It’s made by a chef who went to culinary school in Paris,” Ethan murmured, leaning his arm against the center console.
“He can make better soup.”
“Are we almost there?” Emma asked, her small face suddenly clouding over with renewed anxiety as she looked out the rain-streaked window at the decaying brick buildings and flickering neon signs of the industrial district.
“We’re two minutes away,” Ethan assured her, his voice dropping into that steady, unflappable register.
“Just direct Harold when we turn onto your street.”
In the front passenger seat, Harold turned around slightly, holding a tablet displaying a live medical diagnostic feed and local emergency protocols.
“Sir, Dr. Vance is on standby at the estate clinic,” Harold reported quietly, his eyes flickering toward Emma in the rearview mirror.
“Once we secure Mrs. Carter, our medical transport team can stabilize her on-site. We have IV fluids, antipyretics, and a full quarantine suite prepared if this is an aggressive respiratory infection.”
“Good,” Ethan nodded, though his eyes remained fixed on Emma.
“Tell Vance to clear his schedule for the next week. Nobody enters or leaves the estate medical wing until Elena is 100 percent.”
The convoy slowed down, turning sharply onto a narrow, potholed alleyway flanked by rotting wooden tenement buildings whose fire escapes rattled violently in the grip of the gale.
“Here!” Emma suddenly cried out, pointing a small finger toward a rusted metal door wedged between a shuttered laundromat and a darkened upholstery shop.
“Number 4B! That’s our building!”
The Escalades rolled to a silent halt, their tires crunching over broken glass and slush.
Before the security detail in the second vehicle could even unlatch their doors, Ethan Blackwood pushed his own door open, stepping directly out into the freezing, driving rain.
“Sir, let us sweep the building first!” Harold urged, scrambling out behind him with an umbrella.
“No sweep necessary,” Ethan barked, his face set in stone.
“Stay with the vehicle, Harold. Keep the engine running.”
Ethan strode across the flooded pavement with long, purposeful strides, his dark wool coat billowing behind him like the cloak of an avenging angel.
He reached the metal door of 4B, didn't bother knocking, and threw his shoulder against the rotting wooden frame with a sharp, controlled burst of force.
Crash.
The deadbolt snapped like dry twigs, and the door swung wide open into a pitch-black, ice-cold apartment that smelled faintly of damp plaster, cheap soup, and sickness.
Ethan stepped across the threshold, his hand instinctively sliding beneath his coat toward the grip of his Sig Sauer, his eyes adjusting to the gloomy interior.
The apartment was painfully small.
A single room serving as a kitchen, living area, and bedroom combined.
A lone mattress lay on the floor in the corner, covered by a thin, threadbare quilt.
And beneath that quilt, shivering so violently that the metal bed frame rattled against the floor, was a woman.
Ethan crossed the small room in three seconds flat.
He dropped to his knees beside the mattress, his dark eyes stripping away the layers of damp blankets to reveal the face of the woman who had haunted his dreams and enraged his waking hours for six long years.
Elena Carter.
Her honey-brown hair—the exact same shade as Emma’s—was plastered to her pale, fever-swept forehead.
Her lips were cracked and tinged with blue, and her chest rose and fell in shallow, agonizing hitches with every breath she drew.
She looked fragile.
Exhausted.
Broken down by years of hiding, poverty, and relentless illness.
Ethan reached out with a hand that had never trembled during a gunfight, gently sliding his palm against her burning cheek.
Elena stirred beneath his touch.
Her heavy, dark eyelashes fluttered open, revealing pale blue eyes—eyes identical to Emma’s—that gazed up at him through a haze of fever and delirium.
For a moment, she didn't seem to recognize him.
Then, her lips parted, and a soft, broken sound escaped her throat.
May you like
“Ethan...?” she whispered, her voice little more than a dry rasp.
“You... you found us.”
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