CHAPTER FIVE:THE VOICE OUTSIDE
1296 Words
The voice outside the door made my blood turn cold.
“Miss Bello?”
I knew that voice.
The funeral worker.
The same man who guided me through the crowd earlier like he already knew I would come.
For one horrible second, I almost answered.
Damian grabbed my wrist instantly.
Hard.
Not painful.
Warning.
His eyes met mine in the darkness.
Don’t.
The silence outside stretched
Then the voice came again, softer this time.
“Miss Bello… I know you’re in there.”
Every instinct inside me screamed to move, speak, breathe louder—something. But Damian remained perfectly still beside me.
The emergency lights flickered red across his face, turning his expression into something sharp and dangerous. Unfamiliar.
The handle moved again. Slowly.
Carefully.
Not forcing entry.
Testing.
Damian lifted the gun slightly.
Still calm. That calmness terrified me more than the voice outside.
Because it meant this wasn’t panic to him.
This was routine. “Open the door,” the man said quietly from outside. “You’re safer with us.”
Us.
My stomach tightened.
The hallway fell silent again.
Then
Footsteps approached from farther down the The voice outside the door made my blood turn cold.
“Miss Bello?”
I knew that voice.
The funeral worker.
The same man who guided me through the crowd earlier like he already knew I would come.
For one horrible second, I almost answered.
Damian grabbed my wrist instantly.
Hard.
Not painful.
Warning.
His eyes met mine in the darkness.
Don’t.
The silence outside stretched.
Then the voice came again, softer this time.
“Miss Bello… I know you’re in there.”
Every instinct inside me screamed to move, speak, breathe louder—something.
But Damian remained perfectly still beside me.
The emergency lights flickered red across his face, turning his expression into something sharp and dangerous.
Unfamiliar.
The handle moved again.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Not forcing entry.
Testing.
Damian lifted the gun slightly.
Still calm.
That calmness terrified me more than the voice outside.
Because it meant this wasn’t panic to him.
This was routine.
“Open the door,” the man said quietly from outside. “You’re safer with us.”
Us.
My stomach tightened.
The hallway fell silent again.
Then—
Footsteps approached from farther down the corridor.
Fast.
The man outside cursed under his breath before moving away from the door immediately.
A second later, gunfire exploded somewhere nearby.
I flinched violently.
Damian didn’t.
He simply counted silently beneath his breath.
One.
Two.
Three.
Then he moved.
Fast.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the far side of the room where another hidden door slid open automatically.
I stared at it in shock.
“There’s another exit?”
“There are six.”
Of course there were.
The hallway beyond the hidden door was darker, narrower, colder.
The walls were concrete now instead of marble.
No artwork.
No expensive furniture.
Just exposed pipes and dim overhead lights flickering weakly above us.
The glamorous billionaire illusion had disappeared completely.
This place looked built for survival.
Not living.
“What is this place?” I whispered.
Damian walked ahead without slowing down.
“A precaution.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting right now.”
I hated how easily he shut people out.
Like entire parts of him had been sealed off permanently.
Another gunshot echoed faintly behind us.
Closer than before.
My chest tightened.
“They’re inside the building?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
The fact that Damian Vale—a man who seemed prepared for everything—didn’t know something made the fear worse.
Much worse.
We turned another corner.
The corridor opened into a large underground garage lined with black vehicles.
No license plates.
No markings.
Nothing identifiable.
The entire place looked erased.
Like it officially didn’t exist.
Damian finally stopped near one of the cars.
Then he turned toward me fully for the first time since the shooting started.
“Listen carefully.”
Something in his tone made me straighten immediately.
“If anything happens downstairs,” he said calmly, “you do not stop moving.”
My throat tightened.
“What exactly does that mean?”
“It means hesitation gets people killed.”
I stared at him.
The frightening part wasn’t the words.
It was the fact that he said them like experience instead of fear.
“How many times has this happened before?”
Damian looked away briefly.
“Enough.”
The garage lights flickered suddenly.
Once.
Twice.
Then stabilized.
Damian’s expression darkened instantly.
“What?”
Instead of answering, he stepped toward the nearest vehicle and opened the trunk.
Inside were weapons.
Several of them.
I froze.
“What the hell—”
“We need to leave.”
“No kidding!”
Another distant scream echoed somewhere above us.
This one shorter.
Abruptly cut off.
My skin crawled.
Damian grabbed something from the trunk before shutting it again quickly.
Then he handed me a small black object.
At first I thought it was a phone.
Then I realized it wasn’t.
“What is this?”
“A panic trigger.”
I stared at it blankly.
“If we get separated,” Damian continued calmly, “press the button twice.”
I looked up immediately.
“If?”
His silence answered enough.
Something cold settled heavily in my stomach.
“You seriously think they’ll separate us?”
“I think whoever came tonight already knows this building better than they should.”
That sentence hit me strangely.
“You think there’s a traitor.”
“I know there is.”
The garage suddenly felt even colder.
For the first time since meeting Damian, I saw something dangerous shift beneath his calmness.
Not fear.
Betrayal.
That somehow felt worse.
Before I could ask another question, a loud metallic crash echoed somewhere behind us.
Both of us turned instantly.
Footsteps.
Running.
Coming fast.
Damian reacted immediately.
He grabbed my arm again and shoved me behind one of the vehicles just as two armed men appeared at the far entrance of the garage.
Everything inside me stopped.
The men wore black tactical clothing with no insignia.
No faces visible.
One of them spoke quietly into an earpiece.
“Lower level secured.”
My pulse exploded.
Secured?
They sounded organized.
Prepared.
Like this had been planned carefully.
Damian crouched beside me silently, watching them.
Calculating.
His expression remained unreadable, but something about his eyes changed.
Colder now.
Sharper.
Predatory.
The men moved farther into the garage.
One walked dangerously close to where we were hiding.
I pressed my hand against my mouth instinctively, trying to quiet my breathing.
The footsteps stopped.
Silence.
The man tilted his head slightly.
Listening.
My heartbeat became unbearable.
Then suddenly—
A loud alarm blared somewhere upstairs.
The men reacted immediately.
“Move,” one of them snapped.
Both disappeared toward the opposite corridor seconds later.
The moment they vanished, Damian stood.
“We’re leaving.”
I grabbed his arm before he could walk away.
“Wait.”
He looked down at my hand briefly.
“You know who they are, don’t you?”
A pause.
Too long.
“Not exactly.”
“That’s not a real answer.”
“No,” Damian agreed calmly. “It isn’t.”
Frustration surged through me.
“You keep doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Answering questions without actually answering them.”
For a second, something almost amused flickered across his face.
Almost.
Then it disappeared again.
“You notice more than most people.”
“I’m a journalist.”
“No,” Damian corrected quietly. “You’re your father’s daughter.”
The words hit harder than they should have.
- Writer
