Chapter 9 - The Ghost from the Past
The glowing words on the screen burned into my retinas. “He didn't just steal the money—he killed the lead investigator to frame your family first. Run now.”
My hands shook so violently that the smartphone nearly slipped from my grasp onto the cold stone floor. I looked up slowly from the screen, my eyes locking onto Julian’s expression. The cold, calculating confidence in his eyes had flickered, replaced for a split second by a flash of genuine, unadulterated shock.
“Where did you get this?” I demanded, stepping forward, the fear momentarily overridden by a surge of desperate confusion. “Who sent this?”
Julian didn't answer immediately. He stared at the screen in my hand, his jaw clenching as a muscle ticked violently in his cheek. He reached out with surprising speed, grabbing my wrist to inspect the message himself.
“This number is encrypted,” Julian muttered, more to himself than to me. “No external gateway can route through this property’s firewall. The local repeater was disabled the moment we drove through the gates.”
“Then someone is here,” I whispered, my heart pounding against my ribs. “Someone else is in this house.”
Before Julian could respond, a sudden, sharp pop echoed from the far side of the expansive living room. One of the large computer monitors on the mahogany desk sparked violently, its screen shattering into a spiderweb of black glass as a small hole pierced the outer pane of the floor-to-ceiling glass window.
Gunfire.
Julian reacted with instinctual speed, tackling me hard to the floor as a second bullet ricocheted off the stone fireplace with a loud metallic crack. The heavy lace of my wedding dress tore as we hit the floor, sliding across the polished hardwood.
“Stay down!” Julian hissed, his body shielding mine as he drew a compact black firearm from a concealed holster beneath his tuxedo jacket.
“You said this place was secure!” I screamed over the ringing in my ears, panic completely overtaking my senses.
“It is secure against federal agents, not professional ghosts,” Julian growled, scanning the darkened perimeter of the glass-walled room.
Footsteps echoed softly from the balcony outside the upper-level loft, followed by a metallic click of a rifle bolt sliding home in the shadows above us.
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“Julian Vance,” a low, distorted voice called out from the darkness of the second-floor landing. “Drop the weapon and step away from the bride. The game is over.”
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