Chapter 4 - The Blood in the Library and the Face Behind the Balaclava
The sound of the gunshot vibrated through the floorboards of the breakfast room, turning my veins to ice water.
Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to run, to lock myself in the pantry, to hide beneath the heavy mahogany table and pretend I didn't exist.
Instead, my feet moved before my brain could stop them.
I grabbed a heavy brass candlestick from the sideboard, gripped it with both hands, and crept toward the swinging pantry doors.
The hallway beyond was shadowed and dim, the morning light struggling to penetrate the heavy velvet drapes.
“Julian?” I called out, my voice trembling so badly it sounded like a stranger’s.
No answer.
Only the sound of heavy, ragged breathing coming from around the corner near the grand library.
I rounded the corner, pressing my back flat against the walnut-paneled wall, raising the heavy brass candlestick like a club.
The sight that met my eyes in the library doorway made my breath catch in my throat.
Bookshelves had been violently upended, expensive leather volumes scattered across the Persian rug.
In the center of the room, Julian Corsini stood over a sprawling figure dressed head-to-toe in black tactical gear.
A black ski mask had been partially ripped away, revealing the pale, bloodied face of a man in his late thirties with a deep laceration across his forehead.
Julian’s gun was pointed directly down at the intruder’s chest.
His bespoke shirt was stained with dark streaks of blood—not his own, but the man’s.
“Martin,” Julian barked sharply without turning around, his eyes locked on the writhing intruder.
“Get in here and clean up this trash before the maids see it.”
A heavy set of footsteps echoed down the hall as Martin Doyle, Julian’s massive, stone-faced security chief, hurried into the library carrying a roll of heavy-duty zip ties and a black duffel bag.
“Boss,” Martin grunted, taking in the chaos.
“You catch the rat?”
“He wasn't stealing,” Julian said, his voice dangerously low, dropping to one knee beside the bleeding man.
“He was planting.”
I lowered the brass candlestick slowly, stepping out from the shadows of the doorway.
“Planting what?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Julian didn't look up at me immediately.
He reached down, gripping the intruder by the collar of his tactical vest, and yanked a small, metallic object out of the man’s jacket pocket.
He held it up for us to see.
It was a small, high-tech electronic bug—a listening device programmed to transmit audio directly to an external receiver.
“Someone wants to know why I’m looking for a handful of worthless train tickets and matchbooks,” Julian said, his dark eyes flashing with a cold, murderous fury.
“They didn't break in to steal my past, Sadie. They broke in to find out why I care about it.”
The bleeding intruder suddenly let out a wet, hysterical laugh, spitting a drop of blood onto the Persian rug.
“You think you’re so smart, Corsini,” the man wheezed, his eyes rolling back slightly.
“You think protecting those little relics keeps your secrets safe. But the person pulling the strings… they already know about the fire in Providence. They know what happened twenty-three years ago.”
Julian’s face went entirely, terrifyingly blank.
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The temperature in the library seemed to drop below freezing.
Without a single word of warning, Julian raised the heavy butt of his pistol and brought it down hard across the intruder’s temple, knocking the man unconscious with one brutal, calculated blow.
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