Chapter 2 - For 3 agonizing seconds, only groans and crying could be heard.
Then the glass in the carriage doors shattered inward.
Metal buckled.
Heavy boots came through.
Chantelle curled against the sticky floor, hands over her ears.
She could see only Devlin’s expensive shoes and dirty linoleum.
The first gunshots came from the back of the carriage.
Inside the confined train, the sound was not a clean cinematic crack.
It was concussive.
A violent roar that rattled teeth and disoriented the brain.
Chantelle screamed and squeezed her eyes closed.
Sulfur and copper flooded the air.
“Cover the front,” someone shouted.
Not Devlin.
The voice was frantic.
Devlin had risen behind the plastic seat back.
Chantelle watched him draw the pistol beneath his jacket.
His movements were precise.
No wasted motion.
No hesitation.
He aimed.
Fired twice.
A body struck the floor.
Somebody made a wet, choking sound.
Passengers screamed and crawled beneath seats.
Chantelle pressed herself lower, feeling moisture soaking into the knee of her jeans.
She did not look.
She knew what it was.
“Murphy!”
A voice came from the front of the carriage.
“It’s over. They sold you out.”
Devlin did not answer.
He crouched beside Chantelle, ejected the empty magazine, and drove a fresh one into the pistol.
His breathing remained steady.
He looked down.
“Are you hit?”
Chantelle shook her head.
“Stay low.”
Devlin turned and fired 3 times.
Return fire tore through the top of the seat.
Plastic and fragments rained over Chantelle.
“Push up!”
The attackers were advancing.
There were at least 4.
Heavy boots moved closer over broken glass and spent casings.
Devlin’s men were either dead or pinned down.
For that moment, it appeared to be only him.
Devlin grabbed the collar of Chantelle’s coat and dragged her backward toward a steel partition near the doors.
She scrambled to help, fingernails scraping the floor.
“Who are they?”
The question came out as a sob.
“People who want me dead.”
Devlin checked the chamber.
“Unfortunately for them, they’re impatient.”
He did not wait.
Devlin stepped from behind the steel partition and moved directly into the attackers’ line of fire.
He did not shoot wildly.
1 shot.
1 step.
Another shot.
2 bodies hit the floor.
The remaining men panicked.
Bullets tore into windows and ceiling panels.
Devlin closed the distance.
What followed was sudden, physical, and brutally efficient.
Chantelle heard bone break.
A wet gasp.
1 final suppressed shot.
Then silence.
Her ears rang.
Red lights flickered above drifting smoke.
Slowly, Chantelle pushed herself up.
Devlin stood at the far end of the carriage among bodies in tactical clothing.
He wiped blood from his cheek with the back of 1 hand.
His chest moved more quickly now.
His face remained stone.
He stepped over the bodies and walked back toward her.
Chantelle scrambled backward until her spine hit the steel partition.
She had seen his face.
Seen him kill.
The cynical part of her mind supplied the obvious conclusion.
Witnesses did not leave.
Devlin stopped.
“Get up.”
Chantelle shook her head.
Tears finally spilled.
“Please. I didn’t see anything. I don’t know who you are. I just wanted to go home.”
His expression did not change.
Devlin caught her by the upper arm and pulled her upright effortlessly.
She stumbled against him.
Gunpowder clung to his clothing.
“They know you were sitting beside me.”
Chantelle stared.
“Lucian’s men are thorough. They’ll pull station cameras. They’ll see us talking. They’ll assume you belong to me.”
“I don’t belong to anybody.”
She tried to wrench free.
His grip did not move.
“You do now.”
Devlin dragged her toward the shattered train doors.
The subway tunnel beyond was a wet black void beneath the city.
“Where are we going?”
“To keep you alive.”
Devlin stepped into the tunnel and pulled her after him.
“Try to keep up.”
Gravel crunched beneath Chantelle’s cheap sneakers.
The tunnel smelled of sewage, iron, and ozone.
Emergency lamps every 50 yards created sickly yellow pools of light separated by stretches of absolute darkness.
Devlin moved quickly.
Not running.
His stride was simply long enough that Chantelle had to half jog to keep pace.
His hand remained around her wrist like a restraint.
Her lungs burned.
The exhaustion from the diner combined with the crash after adrenaline, leaving her weak and nauseated.
“I need—”
Her foot caught a thick cable.
She pitched forward.
Devlin jerked upward and stopped the fall before her knees struck the ground.
The movement pulled painfully at her shoulder.
He held her upright for 2 seconds.
No comfort.
Then continued.
“Quiet. Sound carries.”
Chantelle swallowed the sob threatening her throat.
She stared at the back of his damaged charcoal suit.
Dust.
Dark wet stains.
He moved with a predator’s grace.
Every few yards, his head shifted toward a side passage or maintenance alcove.
His free hand remained near the pistol.
They walked long enough that Chantelle lost track of time.
Eventually, the tunnel began to incline.
Cooler air moved toward them.
Traffic vibrated faintly overhead.
“Where are we?”
“Under the garment district.”
Devlin kept moving.
“Almost out.”
He stopped beside a maintenance ladder fixed to the concrete wall.
The iron rungs disappeared into a vertical shaft.
Devlin released her wrist.
Chantelle rubbed the skin where his fingers had been.
“Climb.”
She looked upward.
“I can’t. My arms are shaking.”
Devlin moved closer.
His eyes showed no sympathy.
“The men on that train were an advance team. Cleaners will already be arriving.”
Chantelle listened.
“When they realize I’m alive, they’ll search these tunnels.”
His voice remained flat.
“If they find you, they won’t ask questions. They’ll put a bullet in your head because you were in their line of sight.”
He pointed upward.
“So climb.”
It was not his threat.
Only information.
Chantelle grabbed the first cold rung.
Grease coated the iron.
She pulled herself upward.
Every muscle protested.
1 rung.
Then another.
Devlin climbed below her in complete silence.
At the top, Chantelle struck her head against an iron grate.
She gasped.
“Push it up.”
“It’s heavy.”
“Use your shoulders.”
Chantelle braced her feet and forced her shoulder against the metal.
Nothing happened.
Panic rose.
She pushed harder until she tasted copper.
Finally, the grate scraped across concrete.
Cold wet air entered.
Chantelle scrambled onto pavement and collapsed.
They were inside a narrow alley littered with trash.
Fine rain continued to fall.
Devlin emerged seconds later.
Without resting, he replaced the grate and covered its edges with soaked cardboard.
“Get up.”
Chantelle sat against the brick wall.
“You said we just had to get out of the tunnel.”
“I said we were almost out.”
Devlin removed a burner phone and typed rapidly.
“We’re exposed here. 5 blocks. Can you walk?”
Chantelle stared up at him.
Streetlight from the avenue illuminated the jagged scar along his neck.
He looked neither tired nor afraid.
Only irritated.
Anger finally broke through her exhaustion.
“Do I have a choice?”
Her voice trembled.
“You dragged me through a shootout, kidnapped me from a subway tunnel, and told me I belong to you.”
She glared at him.
“If I say I can’t walk, what are you going to do? Shoot me?”
Devlin pocketed the phone.
For a long moment, police sirens in the distance were the only sound.
“If I wanted you dead, I would have left you in the train.”
He looked directly at her.
“I don’t kill civilians. Lucian Bell does.”
He continued.
“He burns everything he touches. You sat inside my perimeter. His men saw it. To them, you’re a loose end.”
Chantelle said nothing.
“I am taking you somewhere they cannot find you. But I cannot carry you, and I will not stand in this alley waiting to be ambushed.”
He turned.
“We walk.”
Chantelle closed her eyes.
She hated him.
His suit.
His cold eyes.
His logic.
But she did not want to die beside garbage bags in a wet alley.
She used the brick wall to pull herself upright.
Then limped after him into the rain.
Devlin avoided the main streets.
He led her through service docks and narrow passages beneath neon signs that painted the wet pavement pink and blue.
Every shadow looked armed.
Every car sounded threatening.
Chantelle moved on instinct.
Eventually, they stopped at a rusted steel door behind an abandoned textile warehouse.
Devlin entered a long code into a heavy keypad.
The lock released with a solid mechanical thud.
He ushered her inside.
Then closed the door and secured 3 deadbolts.
Silence became immediate.
Devlin switched on the lights.
A huge open loft appeared.
Polished concrete.
Minimalist leather furniture.
May you like
A steel kitchen island.
Heavy blackout curtains.
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