Chapter 6
The slow, deliberate creak of the wooden staircase echoed like a ticking clock of doom. Each step sounded closer, heavier, and more intentional. Clara’s mind raced through a dozen impossible escape routes, but the apartment was a trap—second-floor windows overlooking a concrete alley, a single front door currently being breached by unknown intruders, and a baby who needed absolute silence to survive the night.
Julian shoved the red ledger into the deep pocket of Clara’s pink robe, his hands shaking uncontrollably.
“Take it,” he whispered urgently, his eyes wide with adrenaline. “If they search me, they’ll find nothing. They think I’m just a desperate runaway. You’re the grieving widow; they won't suspect you have the physical evidence until it’s too late.”
“And you?” Clara asked, her heart pounding against her ribs as she clutched the heavy leather book hidden against her side. “Where will you go?”
“I’ll create a distraction out on the fire escape,” Julian muttered, unlatching the window fully and testing the freezing metal bars outside. “Buy me two minutes, Clara. Just two minutes to reach the alley dumpster. Meet me at the diner on 4th Street if we make it out of this alive.”
Without waiting for an answer, Julian slipped back out into the freezing night, pulling the window shut just enough to look closed from the inside while remaining unlatched.
The doorknob to the nursery turned with a soft metallic click.
Clara didn’t have time to panic. She spun around, dropped heavily into the rocking chair beside the crib, and began softly humming a lullaby, forcing her breathing to slow down, forcing her hands to stop trembling as she cradled an imaginary weight in her arms, pretending to soothe a restless baby.
The door pushed open slowly. Standing in the threshold was not Evelyn, but a broad-shouldered man in a dark trench coat, his face half-shadowed by the hallway light. It was Marcus, Evelyn’s longtime head of security—a man known in local whispers as the cleaner who made problems disappear without a trace.
Marcus scanned the nursery with cold, professional eyes, his gaze lingering on the closed window and the damp footprints Julian had left near the sill. He took a slow step into the room, his heavy shoes creaking on the wooden floorboards.
“Nice night for a walk, Mrs. Vance,” Marcus said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that sent chills down Clara’s spine. “Though I hear the neighborhood isn’t safe for single mothers after dark.”
May you like
Clara kept her eyes fixed on the crib, her voice steady with a terrifying, rehearsed calm. “Get out of my room, or I’ll start screaming until the entire street is awake.”
Marcus smiled, a humorless stretch of thin lips as he reached slowly into the inside pocket of his trench coat.
