Chapter 4 - The Ghost in the Apartment
The Escalade pulled into the underground parking garage of Elena’s luxury high-rise building with a soft squeal of tires. Marcus killed the engine immediately, leaving them in the dim, flickering amber glow of overhead fluorescent tubes. The concrete space was eerily quiet, save for the distant dripping of an overhead pipe.
"Stay behind me," Marcus instructed, pulling a heavy tactical flashlight from the side door pocket.
"This is my home," Elena whispered, feeling a surge of defiant anger override her terror. "I pay four thousand dollars a month to live here. Nobody breaks into—"
She stopped mid-sentence as they rounded the corner toward her designated parking stall. The heavy steel fire door leading into the stairwell was propped open with a rubber wedge. A faint, acrid smell of burnt plastic drifted out into the garage.
Marcus raised a hand, signaling her to freeze. He drew a small, matte-black firearm from his waistband, keeping it low and close to his thigh. "They're already inside."
Elena’s heart pounded against her ribs like a trapped bird. "How is that possible? The concierge uses facial recognition!"
"Facial recognition can be bypassed when you control the municipal server room," Marcus muttered, stepping carefully through the open door. "Move."
They crept up the concrete stairs in absolute silence, the air growing warmer with every floor they climbed. When they reached the twelfth floor, Elena noticed her apartment door was standing slightly ajar, the heavy deadbolt sheared clean out of the wooden frame. Splintered mahogany littered the carpet like dry breadcrumbs.
Marcus pushed the door open with the barrel of his weapon, sweeping the living room in one fluid motion. The place had been systematically destroyed. Cushions were slashed open, books dumped from the shelves in chaotic heaps, and the framed photographs on the wall smashed to pieces.
Elena gasped, stepping into the ruined sanctuary of her life. Her eyes landed on the antique wooden desk in the corner, where the secret floorboard had been pried up.
"The ledger," she breathed, rushing forward.
May you like
Marcus grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around just as a laser sight's red dot danced across the wall where her head had been a second earlier. A silenced gunshot cracked through the apartment.
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