Chapter 3 - Ten Minutes to DisappearI had never heard a gunshot in real life before.
Movies make it sound clean.
Real gunfire is ugly.
It cracks the air open. It punches through your bones. It turns every thought into a scream.
Mikey dropped to the floor before I even understood what happened. Marco moved faster than seemed human, grabbing both of us and dragging us behind the kitchen counter as plaster dust rained across my cheap linoleum.
“Stay down,” he ordered.
Another shot tore through the door.
My coffee mug exploded on the counter. A shard sliced my cheek. I did not feel it until warm blood touched my jaw.
Mikey saw it and started crying silently.
Not loud.
Not like a child who wanted comfort.
Like someone who knew noise could get him killed.
That was worse.
Marco pulled a gun from beneath his coat. I stared at it like it was a snake.
He saw my expression.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Then he fired twice through the door.
The footsteps in the hallway stopped.
A man cursed.
Marco turned to me. “Bedroom window. Fire escape?”
“Yes.”
“What floor?”
“Third.”
“Good.”
Good.
As if any of this belonged in a sentence with good.
I crawled toward the bedroom with Mikey pressed against my side. Marco moved behind us, never taking his eyes off the door.
Another hit slammed against the lock.
Then another.
My neighbor Mrs. Alvarez screamed from somewhere across the hall.
The sound yanked something out of me.
“My neighbors—”
Marco grabbed my arm. “If you open that door, you die first and help no one.”
“I can’t just—”
“Brennan won’t touch them unless they get in his way. You are his target now.”
Now.
One little word.
My life had been divided into before and now.
Before, I worried about rent, grocery prices, the slow leak under my sink, and whether my manager would finally give me enough hours to pay the electric bill.
Now, armed men were breaking into my apartment because I gave pancakes to a hungry boy.
In the bedroom, I shoved the window open. Cold morning air hit my face. The fire escape ladder waited outside, rusted and narrow.
Mikey froze.
“I can’t,” he whispered.
“Yes, you can.”
“It’s high.”
“I’ll go first.”
“No!”
His panic broke through at last, sharp and desperate.
I took his face in both hands.
“Look at me. You trusted me last night, right?”
He nodded, crying.
“Trust me for ten more minutes.”
The front door split with a cracking sound.
Marco fired again.
“Emily,” he barked. “Move.”
I climbed out onto the fire escape. Metal groaned under me. My hands shook so hard I almost slipped.
Below, the alley was empty except for trash bins and the weak yellow light of morning.
I turned back and held my arms out.
“Mikey. Come on.”
He climbed through the window with Marco’s hand steadying his back.
For half a second, the boy stood between worlds.
My tiny bedroom behind him.
The cold open air beneath him.
Then a man burst through my apartment door.
Marco fired once.
The man disappeared from view.
“Go,” Marco snapped.
I pulled Mikey onto the fire escape. We climbed down fast, too fast, my bare hands scraping rust, my breath tearing at my throat.
Above us, Marco backed out through the window and followed.
By the second-floor landing, I heard shouting from inside my apartment.
“Find him!”
“Check the window!”
Mikey started moving faster.
At the bottom, the ladder stuck.
“Kick it,” Marco said.
I kicked.
Nothing.
He reached around me, struck the release with the heel of his hand, and the ladder dropped with a scream of metal.
We hit the alley hard.
A black SUV screeched to a stop at the far end.
I froze.
Marco shoved me behind a dumpster.
“Not mine.”
Two men got out.
One of them was huge, shaved head, gray suit under an open coat.
Mikey made a small sound.
Brennan.
I knew it without asking.
The man smiled when he saw us.
Not a cruel smile.
A bored one.
Like we had inconvenienced him.
“Mikey,” Brennan called. “Your father is worried sick.”
Mikey clutched my hand.
Marco stepped in front of us.
“You’re off assignment,” Marco said.
Brennan looked at him and laughed softly.
“Marco. Still playing loyal dog?”
“Walk away.”
“You first.”
The alley became so quiet I could hear water dripping from a pipe.
Brennan’s eyes slid to me.
“And you must be the waitress.”
I hated the way he said it. Not angry. Not surprised. Like I was a stain on his shoe.
“Emily Carter,” he continued. “Thirty-one. Works nights at Rosie’s Diner. Two months behind on medical debt. No family in the city except an aunt in Ohio you haven’t called in six years.”
My skin crawled.
Mikey whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Brennan smiled wider. “See? He knows what happens to people who help him.”
Something hot rose in my chest.
Fear had been driving until then.
But anger took the wheel.
I stepped from behind Marco.
“You researched all that and still couldn’t find a seven-year-old before a waitress did?”
Brennan’s smile vanished.
Marco looked like he wanted to shake me.
Mikey looked like he wanted to cheer and hide at the same time.
Brennan took one slow step forward.
“You have no idea whose business you’re in.”
“No,” I said. “But I know a child begged not to go with you.”
For the first time, Brennan looked at Mikey.
Really looked.
And there was something in his face that told me the boy was not imagining things.
This man hated him.
Not because Mikey had done anything.
Because Mikey existed.
Brennan reached into his coat.
Marco raised his gun.
Then headlights flooded the other end of the alley.
A second SUV cut off the exit.
Marco’s face tightened.
I thought we were trapped.
Then the back door opened.
A man stepped out.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Dark hair with silver at the temples.
No coat, despite the cold.
He looked like he had left somewhere in a hurry and brought a storm with him.
The alley changed the moment he arrived.
Even Brennan stopped smiling.
Mikey’s hand slipped out of mine.
The boy took one step forward.
Then another.
His voice cracked.
“Dad?”
Gabriel Vale looked at his son.
All the power left his face.
What remained was pure grief.
“Mikhail.”
Mikey ran.
Gabriel dropped to his knees in the dirty alley and caught him like the world had ended and restarted in his arms.
For one terrible, beautiful moment, nobody moved.
Then Mikey sobbed, “Don’t send me back with them.”
Gabriel’s eyes lifted over his son’s head.
They landed on Brennan.
And the warmth vanished.
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“What does he mean,” Gabriel said, “by them?”
Brennan went pale.
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