Chapter 8 - The Exit Code|
On the monitor, Silas walked across the ruined study, past the bodies, and straight toward the pantry.
A second later, the metallic speaker inside the panic room crackled to life.
"Clara," Silas’s voice came through, clear, steady, and entirely calm despite the nightmare that had just unfolded outside. "Open the door."
My hands were shaking violently as I stood up. I stepped toward the heavy mechanical wheel on the inside of the steel door.
I put my hands on the iron spokes.
"Silas," I called out through the intercom. "Is Elena alive?"
"She’s alive," Silas replied softly. "She’s tied to a chair in the dining room."
"My father... is it true?" I whispered, tears burning my eyes. "Did Arthur sell us out?"
A long silence stretched over the speaker line before Silas answered.
"Your father thinks he can trade you like cargo again, Clara," Silas said, his voice dropping into that dark, lethal tone that sent shivers down my spine. "He thinks because I’m backed into a corner, I’ll let him take my family. He’s wrong."
"Silas, he has fifty armed men at Midway!" I warned, leaning against the cold steel door. "You can't fight him and the Castigliones alone!"
"I’m not alone," Silas whispered. "I have you. Now enter the code, Clara. We're leaving this tower."
I placed my trembling fingers on the mechanical keypad beside the wheel.
I typed in the digits of the night we met in Boston: 0 - 4 - 1 - 2.
The heavy iron deadbolts retracted with a loud metallic thud.
The four-inch steel door swung open.
Silas stood in the bright lights of the pantry. His white shirt was soaked in blood, his dark hair messy, his combat pistol held loosely at his side.
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He looked like a demon rising from hell.
But when his gray eyes landed on me, he set his gun down on the counter, stepped forward, and pulled me tightly into his arms.
