Panic Room
1045 Words
Elena hated how fast fear could turn a room cold.
One minute she’d been standing in the kitchen arguing with Luca about coffee and control issues.
The next, she was locked inside a reinforced panic room listening to distant footsteps echo somewhere beyond the steel walls.
The room itself was small but expensive. Gray concrete walls. A leather couch. Security monitors lining one side of the room. Emergency supplies stacked neatly beneath cabinets.
Too prepared.
Like Luca had done this before.
Too many times.
Elena paced anxiously across the floor, heart hammering against her ribs while alarms continued flashing red across the monitors.
Three armed men.
Inside the building.
Coming for her.
Her hands shook.
She hated that they shook.
The security feed flickered suddenly.
One screen showed the hallway outside the apartment.
Two masked men moved carefully toward the front door with guns raised.
Elena stopped breathing.
Then another figure appeared behind them.
Luca.
Everything happened fast.
One second he was there.
The next, one of the attackers slammed violently into the wall.
A gunshot exploded through the speakers.
Elena flinched hard.
Luca moved like something terrifyingly precise. Controlled. Efficient.
Not reckless.
Trained.
He disarmed the second man in seconds before shoving him to the floor hard enough to crack the glass table nearby.
Elena’s pulse pounded harder.
This was a side of him she hadn’t seen before.
Not calm Luca.
Not quiet, sarcastic Luca.
This version looked dangerous.
Like violence belonged to him naturally.
The third attacker appeared from the stairwell suddenly.
“Elena, down!” Luca’s voice barked through the room speakers.
Gunshots erupted again.
The monitor glitched violently.
Then went black.
“No,” Elena whispered immediately.
Her chest tightened so fast it hurt.
She grabbed the edge of the desk near the monitors, staring at the blank screen like it might magically come back.
“Luca?”
Nothing.
Silence.
Terrible silence.
“Elena.” His voice suddenly crackled through the speaker system again.
Relief hit her so hard her knees almost gave out.
“Oh my God.”
“Stay where you are.”
“You’re hurt.”
A pause.
Too long.
“Elena—”
“You’re hurt,” she repeated.
“I’m fine.”
Lie.
She could hear the strain in his breathing now.
Blood rushed cold through her veins.
“What happened?”
“Minor injury.”
“That means it’s bad.”
Another silence.
Then: “Stay in the room.”
Static cut through the speaker again.
Then nothing.
Elena stared at the door.
Stay in the room.
Every instinct told her to listen.
But Luca sounded hurt.
Really hurt.
And suddenly the thought of him bleeding somewhere outside those walls felt unbearable.
Her hand moved toward the emergency keypad beside the door before she could think better of it.
“Nope,” she muttered nervously to herself. “This is stupid. Horrible idea.”
She opened the door anyway.
The apartment looked destroyed.
Broken glass covered the floor. Furniture overturned. Bullet holes splintered the walls near the entrance.
The metallic smell of blood lingered in the air.
“Elena.”
Luca’s voice came sharply from the living room.
Angry.
She followed the sound immediately.
And stopped cold.
Luca sat against the kitchen counter holding one hand tightly against his side. Blood stained the black fabric beneath his fingers.
A lot of blood.
“Elena,” he repeated more dangerously this time, “what part of stay in the room was confusing to you?”
She ignored him completely and rushed forward.
“You’re bleeding.”
“I noticed.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t a joke.”
He tried standing.
Failed.
Fear punched straight through her chest.
“Sit down,” she ordered immediately.
Luca looked at her like he’d never been spoken to that way before.
“Elena—”
“Sit down.”
For the first time since meeting him…
He actually listened.
Barely.
Elena grabbed the medical kit from the counter nearby and knelt in front of him quickly.
Up close, he looked pale.
Too pale.
The realization terrified her more than she wanted to admit.
“You got shot?” she asked quietly.
“Graze wound.”
“You say things in the calmest way possible.”
“It helps during emergencies.”
“Well it’s freaking me out.”
A faint breath escaped him.
Almost a laugh.
Elena carefully lifted his blood-covered hand away from his side.
The wound stretched along his ribs, angry and red but thankfully not deep enough to be fatal.
Still.
Seeing him hurt did something awful to her chest.
“You should’ve stayed hidden,” Luca murmured while she cleaned the wound.
“You should’ve avoided getting shot.”
His eyes lowered toward her hands.
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m angry.”
“You said that last time too.”
“Because you keep almost dying.”
The words slipped out before she could stop them.
Silence filled the room instantly.
Elena’s breath caught slightly.
Luca looked at her differently now.
Softer.
Like something in his carefully controlled walls had cracked.
“You were scared for me,” he said quietly.
Her pulse stumbled.
“No,” she lied immediately.
Luca’s mouth tilted faintly at one corner.
Definitely a smile this time.
Small.
Exhausted.
But real.
And somehow it completely ruined her ability to think clearly.
“You’re impossible,” she muttered.
“You opened the panic room door.”
“You were bleeding!”
“You disobeyed direct orders.”
“You got shot!”
Luca actually laughed softly this time.
The sound shocked both of them.
Because suddenly the tension between them wasn’t just fear anymore.
It was something warmer.
More dangerous.
Elena finished wrapping the bandage carefully before leaning back slightly.
Only then did she realize how close they were.
Knees touching.
His hand resting near her thigh.
His eyes fixed completely on her.
The apartment suddenly felt too quiet.
Too intimate.
“Elena,” Luca said softly.
And the way he said her name nearly destroyed her.
Then his phone rang.
The moment shattered instantly.
Luca’s expression hardened again as he answered.
“Yes.”
A long pause.
Then his jaw tightened.
“We’re leaving tonight.”
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