Chapter 8 – The Trap
1238 Words
The photo was still on the phone screen, a grotesque still life.
Selene couldn’t stop staring at it. The dead man’s head lolled to one side, his mouth slightly open, as though caught mid-breath. The crimson stain across his chest was so dark it was almost black.
It wasn’t the gore that rooted her in place, it was the message beneath it. This wasn’t random. This wasn’t even a warning. It was a move in a game she didn’t yet understand.
Kieran slid the phone back across the table. “Get Luca and Rafe,” he told the older man. “We move now.”
The man Rafe nodded once and left without a sound.
Selene’s voice felt strange in her throat. “Move where?”
Kieran didn’t answer immediately. His gaze was fixed on the counter, but it wasn’t the marble he was seeing. “Dante doesn’t waste pieces. If he killed one of his own, it means he’s tightening the net. That man was meant to keep an eye on you, report back. Killing him means someone else has taken his place. Someone closer.”
Her pulse jumped. “Closer? As in...”
“As in they might already be inside my house.”
Within minutes, the house was in controlled chaos. Luca the blond was sweeping the perimeter, a matte-black pistol in his hand. Rafe reappeared with a duffel bag that clinked faintly when he set it on the table.
Kieran unzipped it and began pulling out weapons. Compact pistols. Knives with matte blades. A pair of earpieces sealed in plastic.
Selene forced herself to speak. “You think Dante sent someone in here?”
“I don’t think,” Kieran said, his voice clipped. “I know.”
“How?”
Kieran glanced up at her, eyes cold and calculating. “Because this is how I would do it.”
The room went quiet for a moment. Then Luca’s voice crackled over a small radio clipped to Rafe’s belt.
“South window second floor latch is broken. Fresh.”
Kieran was already moving. He handed Selene an earpiece. “Put it in.”
“I’m not”
“You are,” he said, and the command in his tone was steel. “If something happens, you’ll hear my voice in your ear. You do exactly what I tell you. No questions. No hesitation.”
Selene shoved the earpiece in, her fingers trembling.
They moved together. Kieran in the lead, Rafe at his flank, Selene between them. Every creak of the wooden floor sounded like an alarm bell in her head. The modern lines of the house, which had seemed so pristine last night, now felt like a maze built for the hunter, not the prey.
When they reached the second floor, Kieran slowed. The hall was long, lit only by thin strips of sunlight slipping through tall, narrow windows. At the far end, the south window hung slightly open, the latch bent.
Rafe stepped forward to check it, but Kieran stopped him with a hand. “Don’t touch it.”
“Tripwire?” Rafe asked.
Kieran didn’t answer. He crouched, inspecting the frame, then motioned for them to step back.
A second later, he drew a knife from his belt and flicked the blade upward. Something metallic pinged and dropped to the floor. A tiny black cylinder no bigger than a finger.
Selene frowned. “What is that?”
“Micro-transmitter,” Kieran said. “Whoever planted it wanted to hear everything.”
Her stomach turned. “So they’ve been listening?”
“Not for long,” he said. “This was fresh.”
They swept the rest of the house, but nothing else turned up. That didn’t ease Selene’s nerves it only made them worse. If someone had been inside, and all they’d left was a listening device, it meant they weren’t finished.
By mid-morning, Kieran had locked down the house, set Luca and Rafe on rotating watch, and retreated to the study.
Selene followed him in. “You’re not going to tell me who Dante is?”
Kieran didn’t look up from the papers he was sorting. “You don’t want to know.”
“I do,” she insisted. “Because right now, my life is apparently a chessboard, and I don’t even know what piece I am.”
Kieran’s hands stilled on the paper. For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the faint hum of the ventilation.
Finally, he said, “Dante Vassallo was the man my father trusted most. And the man who sold him to the people who killed him.”
Selene blinked. She hadn’t expected that not the sharp edge of personal history in his voice, not the way his jaw flexed when he said Dante's name.
“You want revenge,” she said quietly.
“I want the board cleared,” he corrected. “And you? You’re not a piece, Selene. You’re leverage. And I’m making sure he never gets to use you.”
She didn’t know whether to be angry or terrified. “You think that makes me feel better?”
“No,” Kieran said. “But it should make you feel alive.”
By evening, the house had settled into an uneasy quiet. Selene tried to read in her room, but her eyes kept flicking to the window, to the shadows under the trees.
When the voice came through her earpiece, it was so soft she almost thought she imagined it.
“Selene,” it said.
She froze.
It wasn’t Kieran’s voice.
“Don’t speak,” the voice continued. “Don’t move. Just listen.”
Her breath caught in her throat.
“You don’t know me, but I know you. And I know you don’t belong here. He’s using you, Selene. Everything he’s told you is a lie.”
Her fingers twitched toward the earpiece, but the voice sharpened. “If you touch it, he’ll know I’m here. And you’ll lose your only chance to get out.”
She swallowed. “Who are you?” she whispered.
There was the faintest chuckle. “A friend. But we don’t have time. If you want the truth, meet me in the clearing past the east fence. Midnight. Come alone.”
Then the line went dead.
Selene sat frozen on the edge of the bed. Her heart hammered so hard she could feel it in her teeth.
She could tell Kieran. She could march straight down to the study and repeat every word. But something in the voice; calm, measured, certain dug its hooks into her.
She wanted answers.
And answers never came without risk.
When midnight came, Selene was already dressed. Black jeans, dark sweater, sneakers. She moved like a shadow down the hall, avoiding the spots where the floorboards creaked.
Outside, the night air was cold and sharp. The forest loomed ahead, a black wall of trunks and branches. She slipped through the east gate, its latch hanging loose, and stepped into the clearing.
A figure stood at the far end. Tall. Lean. Face shadowed by the hood of a sweatshirt.
“Selene,” he said.
She stopped a few paces away. “Who are you?”
The figure pushed the hood back, and the moonlight caught his face.
Her breath left her in a rush.
It wasn’t a stranger.
It was Alexander Grayson her ex-fiancé.
And he was smiling.
- Writer
