Chapter 3 – THE SNAKE AT THE DOOR

The heavy brass handle rattled again, more violently this time.

Clara backed away from the door, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs. She instinctively moved to the velvet sofa, pulling Sophie behind her. The little girl clutched her stuffed rabbit, her brown eyes wide with terror.

“Clara, I know you’re in there,” Silas Vane’s raspy voice echoed through the thick oak wood. “Vincent asked me to come get you and the kid. Everything is sorted out. Rosalind is gone.”

It was a lie. Clara had just seen the wire transfer bearing his name. Silas wasn’t here to help; he was the one pulling Rosalind’s strings.

“Mr. Hale told me not to open the door for anyone but him, Mr. Vane,” Clara called out, forcing her voice to remain steady despite the absolute panic flooding her veins.

A heavy silence fell over the hallway.

Then, Silas chuckled. It was a dry, humorless sound that chilled Clara to the bone.

“You’re a smart girl, Clara,” Silas said, his tone shifting from falsely polite to openly menacing. “That’s why I hired you. Your father owed me forty grand in gambling debts before his heart gave out. You’ve been working it off scrubbing toilets. I’d hate for you to throw all that hard work away by being stubborn tonight.”

Clara gasped, pressing her hand over her mouth.

Her father hadn’t died owing medical debts to a hospital. He had died owing money to the syndicate. Silas had orchestrated her employment, keeping her trapped in this house as a modern indentured servant.

“What do you want, Silas?” Clara demanded, her protective instinct for Sophie overriding her fear.

“I want the manila folder on the desk,” Silas replied bluntly. “Slide the wire transfer under the door, and I’ll let you and the kid sit tight until the dust settles. Keep it, and I’ll shoot the hinges off this door and take it from your cold hands.”

He knew Rosalind had left the paperwork. They were tying up loose ends.

Clara looked frantically around the dim library. There were no other exits. The windows were reinforced, bulletproof glass—Vincent’s paranoia keeping them secure from outside threats, but now trapping them with a monster inside.

“Clara?” Sophie whispered, tugging on her apron. “Is the bad man with the snake coming in?”

Clara looked down at the seven-year-old. Then she looked at the heavy brass fireplace poker resting on the stone hearth a few feet away.

“No, baby,” Clara whispered fiercely. “He’s not.”

Clara hurried to the desk. She grabbed the bank transfer receipt bearing Silas’s name. But she didn’t walk to the door. Instead, she folded it tightly and slipped it deep into the hidden, zippered pocket of Sophie’s stuffed rabbit.

She grabbed the heavy brass fire poker, her palms sweating against the cold metal.

“I don’t have a folder, Silas!” Clara yelled toward the door. “Rosalind must have taken it!”

A suppressed gunshot shattered the heavy oak around the top hinge of the door. Sophie screamed, covering her ears.

The bottom hinge splintered.

Clara positioned herself beside the doorframe, raising the heavy brass poker like a baseball bat. Her breath came in ragged, terrified gasps.

The door violently kicked inward, tearing completely off its ruined hinges, crashing onto the Persian rug in a cloud of splinters.

Silas stepped into the library. He was a towering, imposing man, wearing a dark tailored suit, a suppressed pistol gripped firmly in his right hand. The silver snake tattoo on his neck seemed to writhe in the dim lamplight.

He swept the room with his gun, his eyes locking onto Sophie crying on the sofa.

“There you are,” Silas smirked, stepping forward.

He never saw Clara hiding behind the doorframe.

Clara swung the heavy brass poker with every ounce of strength in her twenty-four-year-old body.

The brass connected with the back of Silas’s knee with a sickening, bone-crunching crack.

Silas roared in absolute agony. His leg buckled instantly, sending the massive underboss crashing to the floor. His pistol skittered across the polished hardwood, sliding under the heavy mahogany desk.

“Run, Sophie! To the kitchen!” Clara screamed.

Sophie didn’t hesitate. She bolted off the sofa, clutching her rabbit, and darted past the writhing man on the floor, disappearing into the dark hallway.

Clara turned to follow, but Silas lunged blindly, his massive hand clamping around Clara’s ankle like a vice.

She hit the floor hard, the breath knocking out of her lungs. She kicked wildly, but Silas’s grip was ironclad. Despite his shattered knee, his sheer rage fueled him. He dragged himself up her leg, his free hand wrapping brutally around her throat.

“You stupid little bitch,” Silas snarled, his face inches from hers, spitting blood and malice. He squeezed her throat, cutting off her air instantly.

Clara clawed at his hands, her vision beginning to swim with black spots. She gagged, her lungs screaming for oxygen.

She was going to die on the library floor.

Suddenly, a deafening, unsuppressed gunshot echoed through the mansion.

It didn’t come from Silas’s gun.

Silas’s eyes went wide. He gasped, his grip on Clara’s throat instantly vanishing. He collapsed sideways onto the rug, clutching his right shoulder, a dark pool of blood rapidly spreading across his tailored suit.

Clara gasped violently for air, scrambling backward until her back hit the bookshelf.

She looked toward the doorway.

Vincent stood there, holding a smoking Colt .45. He looked like the devil himself, his dark eyes burning with a rage so profound it seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room.

“You touch my family again,” Vincent whispered, stepping over the ruined door, “and I will peel your skin off while you breathe.”

Silas writhed on the floor, pressing his hand against the gunshot wound in his shoulder. He looked up at his boss, a bloody, defiant smile twisting his face.

“You’re too late, Vincent,” Silas choked out, laughing a wet, horrific laugh. “Rosalind wasn’t packing the kid’s bags to send her away. She was packing them to get her out of the blast radius.”

Vincent froze. “What are you talking about?”

Silas reached into his suit jacket with his good hand and pulled out a small, black detonator with a single red button.

“Rosalind didn’t just want your money,” Silas grinned, blood coating his teeth. “She wanted the whole empire. And I wanted the throne. The estate is rigged, boss. C4 in the basement pillars. We all burn tonight.”

And before Vincent could raise his gun to stop him, Silas pressed the red button.