Chapter 2 - Nobody Leaves the HouseBy midnight, the Cole estate had become a prison.
One second, she was standing beside Margaret Cole in the underground garage of the Cole estate, balancing a folder against her hip and listening to the older woman complain about Damian's refusal to take a vacation.
The next, Elena saw a green laser settle over Margaret's cream-colored coat.
There was no time to think.
Elena shoved her.
Gunfire exploded through the garage.
The sound was deafening.
Margaret fell behind a concrete pillar.
Elena didn't.
The second bullet tore through her shoulder.
The third spun her sideways.
She heard men shouting.
Someone screamed her name.
Then came the fourth.
And the fifth.
Elena collapsed onto the cold concrete.
For several terrible seconds, the garage became nothing but smoke, alarms, and the pounding of her own heartbeat.
She tried to breathe.
Nothing worked correctly.
Her lungs felt too small.
Her body felt impossibly heavy.
“Mrs. Cole?”
Her voice barely existed.
Margaret crawled toward her.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
The elderly woman dropped beside Elena, hands trembling.
“No. No, no, no.”
Elena forced her eyes toward Margaret's face.
“You okay?”
Margaret stared at her as if the question itself had broken something inside her.
“You saved me.”
Footsteps thundered down the concrete ramp.
Armed men flooded the garage.
And then Damian Cole appeared.
Everyone stopped shouting.
Even wounded, Elena understood why.
Damian Cole didn't need to raise his voice to frighten people.
At thirty-eight, he controlled an empire that newspapers politely called Cole International Holdings and prosecutors privately called something much darker.
He was six-foot-three, broad-shouldered, always immaculate, and famous for possessing the emotional warmth of a locked vault.
Elena had worked in his mother's household for six months.
In that time, she had seen Damian angry.
She had seen him cold.
She had seen him make grown men apologize without saying a word.
She had never seen him afraid.
Until now.
His gaze found the blood around Elena.
His face changed.
“Mom?”
“I'm fine,” Margaret said. “She pushed me away.”
Damian looked back at Elena.
Something inside him seemed to stop.
He crossed the garage so quickly that two bodyguards nearly collided trying to follow him.
Then Damian Cole—the man half of New York feared—dropped to his knees in Elena's blood.
“Elena.”
She blinked.
He knew her first name.
That shouldn't have surprised her.
For some reason, it did.
“Hey,” she whispered.
His hands hovered over her, uncertain where he could touch without hurting her.
“What happened?”
“Five shots,” one guard said. “Maybe more fired. Shooter escaped through the service entrance.”
Damian's head snapped toward him.
“Then why are you standing here?”
The guard ran.
Elena almost smiled.
Very Damian.
Then pain burned through her chest.
She gasped.
Damian immediately leaned closer.
“Look at me.”
“Bossy.”
His expression cracked.
“Elena.”
She had never heard her name sound like a prayer.
Sirens approached above them.
Margaret was crying now.
Elena wanted to reassure her, but her vision had begun narrowing.
“I think…”
“What?”
“I think I'm tired.”
“No.”
Damian seized her hand.
“No. You don't get tired.”
His voice broke.
Every man around them heard it.
Several looked away.
Elena stared at him.
A tear slid down Damian's face.
Then another.
For six months she had believed the stories.
Damian Cole didn't care.
Damian Cole didn't forgive.
Damian Cole had buried every soft part of himself years ago.
Yet here he was, kneeling beside a woman who processed his mother's correspondence for twenty-two dollars an hour, crying as though the world were ending.
“Stay with me,” he whispered.
Elena tried to squeeze his fingers.
“You're ruining your reputation.”
A broken laugh escaped him.
“I'll buy another one.”
The paramedics arrived.
They cut open Elena's blouse and began working.
Damian refused to release her hand until they physically moved him.
As they lifted her onto the stretcher, Elena remembered something.
Something important.
Her fingers tightened.
“Damian.”
He stepped closer immediately.
“What?”
“The shooter…”
Her breathing caught.
“He knew.”
Damian's face hardened.
“Knew what?”
“Your mother's route.”
Everyone in the garage went silent.
Margaret's expression changed.
Only six people knew Margaret would use the underground garage that evening.
Damian looked slowly toward the men surrounding him.
His closest men.
Men who had eaten at his table.
Men who knew his mother's habits.
Elena swallowed against the metallic taste in her mouth.
“And Damian…”
“Yes?”
She looked toward the security camera in the corner.
Its red light was off.
“Someone disabled the cameras before we came down.”
The realization moved through the garage like ice.
This hadn't been a random attack.
Someone inside Damian's organization had opened the door.
The paramedics rolled Elena away.
Damian stood in the middle of her blood.
His grief disappeared behind something far colder.
“Seal the estate.”
His men froze.
“Sir?”
“Nobody leaves.”
Damian looked at each of them.
One by one.
“Because whoever tried to murder my mother is still inside this house.”
Up the ramp, beyond the flashing emergency lights, a man quietly deleted a message from his phone.
TARGET MISSED.
He typed another.
May you like
THE GIRL SAW TOO MUCH.
Then he pressed send.
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