Chapter 18: The Shattered Glass
Chapter 18: The Shattered Glass
"Deal," Vince’s voice crackled through the phone.
A second later, we heard a loud, violent crash through the receiver—the sound of glass shattering, followed by a heavy thud and a scream. But it wasn't Ethan’s scream. It was Vince.
"What's happening?!" I yelled, gripping the laptop. "Vince! Ethan!"
"The perimeter is breached!" Vince shouted through the phone, his voice suddenly frantic. "There’s someone else here! They’re through the back window—"
The line went completely dead.
"Ethan! Noah!" I screamed into the silent phone, but only static answered.
Marcus kept Vanessa pinned to the wall, her wrists cuffed behind her back, but she was laughing through her bruised lip, her eyes wide with manic delight. "You think you’re the only one who can buy people, Claire? You think this is over because you have a computer?"
"Marcus, watch her!" I yelled, snatching my keys from the table.
I didn't wait for the police or the feds. I sprinted up the concrete steps of the vault, bursting through the lobby of the bank into the freezing rain. The fog had rolled in thick, turning the mountain road into a white wall. I slammed the SUV into drive, the tires spinning on the gravel as I tore out of Blackwood, heading back toward the farm at ninety miles an hour.
My mind was a chaotic blur of numbers, faces, and blood. Who was at the house? If Vince didn't have control, who did?
When I finally reached our road forty-five minutes later, the sight made me slam on the brakes.
The front gates of our property were torn off their hinges. Ethan’s pickup truck was parked sideways across the driveway, its driver-side door wide open. The front door of the farmhouse was completely shattered, pieces of white wood scattered across the porch like snow.
I pulled my pepper spray from my purse, my heart hammering a frantic, broken rhythm against my ribs as I stepped out into the rain. The house was completely silent. No wind, no birds, no voices.
"Ethan?" I called out, my voice cracking as I stepped onto the porch.
May you like
I pushed the broken door open. The entryway was a disaster. The living room furniture was overturned, the security monitor smashed into a thousand pieces on the floor. A pool of dark, thick blood was spreading across the white rug near the hallway stairs.
Beside the blood lay Vince’s security badge, snapped in half.
