Chapter 3 - The Interrogation That Wasn't
The bedroom smelled faintly of lavender and antiseptic.
When Elias pushed the door open, the heavy oak didn't even creak. He stepped into the room with the practiced, silent stride of a predator who owned the night.
Marin was standing by the window, looking out over the dark ocean. She didn't turn around when he entered. She didn't jump. She simply adjusted the flow valve on the IV drip hanging beside Adelaide's bed.
"Your security guards are incompetent," Marin said softly, her back to him. "Six men on duty, and all of them were neutralized before they even cleared the perimeter fence. You're paying them too much."
Elias stopped three feet behind her, his hand resting casually near his lower back where the Beretta was hidden. He studied her profile—the sharp line of her jaw, the dark circles under her eyes from too many sleepless shifts, the absolute stillness of her posture.
"You didn't run," Elias said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that usually made grown men drop their gaze. "Most people run when men with black-ops gear break into a house."
Marin turned slowly to face him. Her eyes were a striking, clear hazel, completely devoid of fear. They looked into his with a terrifying level of equality.
"I've seen worse things than men in tactical gear," Marin said evenly. "And besides, my shift doesn't end until six o'clock."
Elias let out a dry, humorless laugh, stepping closer until he towered over her by half a foot. "Who are you, Marin? My files say you graduated from a modest nursing school in Ohio, worked three years in a regional hospital, and then vanished off the grid for twenty-four months before showing up on my agency's roster. People don't learn how to snap a mercenary's neck in a regional hospital."
"People don't live through twenty days of total respiratory failure without learning a few things about survival either," Marin countered, gesturing slightly toward Adelaide, who was pretending to sleep while listening to every word with rapt attention.
"Don't play games with me," Elias snapped, his patience wearing thin. He closed the remaining distance, his hand gripping her wrist—not aggressively, but with enough force to make a point. "Three professional killers breached my estate tonight looking for you. They didn't want my safe. They didn't want my money. They wanted the twenty-eight-dollar-an-hour night nurse. Now, you are going to tell me who sent them, or I am going to find out the hard way."
Marin looked down at his hand wrapped around her wrist. Then she looked up into his eyes.
"If you break my wrist, Mr. Ferrante," she said, her voice dropping into a register so cold it sent a strange shiver down his spine, "who is going to manage your mother's suction line at three o'clock tomorrow morning? Because I promise you, none of your expensive guards know how to clear a mucous plug without puncturing her trachea."
Elias froze. He stared at her, searching her face for any sign of a bluff, any flicker of panic. There was nothing. Just an immovable wall of professional competence and terrifying calm.
Slowly, deliberately, Elias loosened his grip and let go of her wrist.
"You're hiding something big, Marin," Elias whispered, his face inches from hers. "And in this city, secrets like yours usually get people killed."
"Then it's a good thing," Marin replied, her lips curving into a faint, dangerous smile, "that I'm very good at keeping myself alive."
Before Elias could answer, the door swung open again, and Marcus rushed in, holding a charred electronic tablet.
"Boss," Marcus panted, looking between Elias and Marin with wide eyes. "We decrypted the communication unit from the lead intruder. We found out who hired them."
Elias turned slowly toward his chief of security. "Who?"
Marcus swallowed hard, glancing nervously at the nurse. "It wasn't a rival family, Elias. It was the International Intelligence Directorate. And they weren't trying to kill her. They were trying to capture her."
Elias slowly turned his head back to look at Marin. The room seemed to grow ten degrees colder.
"Care to explain why international intelligence agencies are hunting my night nurse?" Elias asked softly.
May you like
Marin sighed softly, rubbing the wrist where he had just been holding her. She walked over to her leather-bound notebook, closed it deliberately, and slipped it into her pocket.
"Because six years ago, Mr. Ferrante," Marin said, looking him dead in the eye, "I was the best black-ops tactical extraction specialist on the continent. And the people who trained me just realized I didn't die in the crash."
