Chapter 2 - The Two Million Dollar Knock
Twenty-four hours after the explosion, I was sitting at my kitchen table in my small seaside cottage, staring into a cold cup of black coffee. The local news was blasting on my muted television in the background. Official statement: a private luxury vessel experienced a mechanical fuel line failure resulting in a fatal blast. No survivors recovered.
No survivors? I thought. I had literally stitched twelve black sutures into the man's scalp last night.
A heavy knock echoed through the house, rattling the front door frame.
I jumped out of my chair, my pulse instantly spiking. It was 11:00 PM. I lived three miles down a secluded coastal road. Nobody came here unannounced.
"Who is it?" I called out, my voice tight, reaching quietly for the heavy brass flashlight on the counter.
"Maya Vance?" a deep, accent-heavy voice boomed from the other side. "I am here on behalf of Mr. Thorne. Open the door."
Thorne. So that was Lucian's last name.
I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open an inch, keeping the safety chain engaged. Standing on my porch was a towering man dressed in a tailored charcoal suit. Broad shoulders, slicked-back graying hair, and a hairline scar running from his ear down to his collar. He looked like an enforcer out of an action film.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
"My name is Viktor," the giant said calmly. He held up a sleek aluminum briefcase. "Mr. Thorne sent me to deliver his debt."
"I don't want his money," I said immediately. "I did my job as a rescue technician."
Viktor didn't ask for permission. He placed a heavy boot against the door frame, gently pushed the door back, and snapped the security chain with effortless, terrifying force. He stepped inside, placing the briefcase directly onto my small wooden kitchen table.
"You don't understand, Miss Vance," Viktor said, flicking the two chrome latches open with a sharp click. "When Lucian Thorne owes a life, he pays. Refusing his gratitude is far more dangerous than accepting it."
He flipped the lid open.
My breath caught in my throat. Stacked neatly in wrapped bundles of crisp, uncirculated hundred-dollar bills was a sea of cash.
"Two million dollars," Viktor said, his tone devoid of emotion. "Tax-free. Unraceable."
"Two... two million?" I stammered, stepping back until my lower back hit the kitchen counter. "This is insane. Take it back. I can't keep this!"
"You must," Viktor replied flatly. "Because as of three hours ago, your life as you knew it ceased to exist."
"What are you talking about?"
Viktor pulled a small electronic device from his pocket and pressed a button. A high-pitched frequency hummed briefly before settling. "Your station's server was breached an hour ago. Someone downloaded the medical log you wrote last night. They know Lucian survived. And they know a female technician named Maya Vance pulled him out."
Cold horror flooded through my veins. "Who downloaded it?"
"The men who blew up his yacht," Viktor said grimly. "Lucian's underboss, Julian Vance—no relation to you, ironic as it is—has seized control of the Thorne syndicate in syndicate territory. He was the one who placed the C4 under the hull. Julian cannot afford for Lucian to be alive. And he cannot afford to leave witnesses who helped him."
"I didn't do anything!" I yelled, my voice cracking with panic. "I was just doing my job!"
"In our world, good deeds are fatal liabilities," Viktor said softly. "The money on that table is not a reward, Miss Vance. It is exit capital. You have twenty minutes to pack one bag, grab your passport, and leave this town forever."
"Leave? This is my home! My research, my brother's care facility—"
"If you stay here, you will be dead before sunrise," Viktor interrupted brutally. "And if they find out about your brother Danny at the St. Jude Care Center, they will use him to draw Lucian out into the open."
Hearing Danny's name on this stranger's lips made my stomach turn completely inside out. "Don't you dare touch my brother!"
"We aren't the ones you need to fear," Viktor said, turning toward the window as headlights suddenly cut through the heavy coastal fog outside. Dark tinted SUVs were coasting silently down my driveway, their engines low rumbles of impending violence.
Viktor instantly drew a suppressed matte-black handgun from inside his coat.
May you like
"They're already here," Viktor growled, slamming the briefcase shut and shoving it into my hands. "Grab your keys, Maya. Run out the back door toward the tree line. Now!"
Before I could even process the terror, the front living room window exploded inward in a shower of sharp glass and lead.
