Chapter 4
1498 Words
The third shot came so close that Serena felt the rush of air brush past her cheek.
Glass exploded somewhere behind her.
A woman screamed.
The station dissolved into chaos.
Travelers abandoned their luggage and threw themselves to the floor. Children cried. Someone shouted for the police while another yelled that there was a shooter.
Serena didn’t think.
She ran.
The scattered papers from the briefcase swirled around her feet like frightened birds.
No.
She couldn’t leave them.
Those files…
The letter…
Her mother’s letter.
She dropped to her knees, ignoring the terrified people pushing past her, and snatched at the pages sliding across the polished floor.
Another shot cracked through the station.
A marble pillar beside her erupted into a shower of stone.
The sniper had found her again.
Her trembling fingers grabbed the folded letter, the flash drive, and several thick files before she threw everything back into the battered briefcase.
She reached for one final photograph.
A polished black shoe stepped on it.
Serena’s breath caught.
Slowly, her gaze traveled upward.
Dark trousers.
A black overcoat dripping rainwater.
Leather gloves.
Then…
The face from the photographs.
Not blurred.
Not distant.
Standing directly in front of her.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Dark eyes that scanned the station with cold precision.
For one heartbeat, neither of them moved.
“You,” Serena whispered.
He looked at her as though he had expected that recognition.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
His voice was calm.
Far too calm for a man standing in the middle of an active shooting.
“What?”
Another gunshot echoed.
The bullet struck the floor only meters away.
Without waiting for an answer, the stranger grabbed the briefcase with one hand and seized Serena’s wrist with the other.
“Move.”
“I don’t even know who you are!”
“You will.”
He pulled her behind one of the station’s massive columns just as another volley of bullets ripped across the corridor they had been standing in seconds earlier.
Chunks of marble showered over them.
Serena stared at him, her chest rising and falling violently.
“You’ve been following me.”
“Yes.”
Fear turned into anger.
“Why?”
His jaw tightened.
“Because I was ordered to keep you alive.”
The words struck harder than the bullets.
Ordered?
By whom?
Before she could ask, his expression changed.
His eyes shifted toward the station’s upper balconies.
Toward the rooftops beyond the glass ceiling.
“We’re out of time.”
He reached inside his coat.
Serena instinctively stepped back.
Instead of a weapon, he pulled out a compact earpiece.
A distorted voice crackled through it.
“They’ve breached the west entrance.”
The stranger’s face hardened.
“How many?”
“More than expected.”
“They know the girl has the archive.”
Archive?
He looked at Serena.
For the first time, something resembling urgency flashed across his otherwise unreadable face.
“Listen to me carefully.”
She clutched the briefcase against her chest.
“I’m not listening to another word until you tell me your name.”
For a fraction of a second, he hesitated.
Then he answered.
“Adrian.”
Just Adrian.
No surname.
No explanation.
A roar suddenly echoed through the station.
Not from inside.
From outside.
Headlights burst through the rain-soaked entrance.
A black armored SUV smashed through the glass doors, sending thousands of glittering shards across the marble floor.
Masked men poured out with military precision.
Each wore the same silver crest stitched onto their sleeves.
Serena’s blood froze.
She knew that crest.
She had seen it only once before.
On the ring worn by the man who had walked away from her burning family home five years ago.
Adrian swore under his breath.
“They found you.”
Serena stared at the advancing men.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
“They’re the ones who killed my family…”
Adrian looked at her with grim certainty.
“No.”
He chambered a round into the pistol he had finally drawn.
The first masked man raised his rifle.
Adrian fired before he could pull the trigger.
The shot echoed through the station.
The gunman spun backward, crashing into a row of luggage lockers.
“Down!” Adrian barked.
Serena dropped instinctively.
A burst of automatic gunfire tore through the air.
Bullets ripped into the marble pillar above them, sending stone fragments raining over their heads.
The station erupted into fresh panic.
People screamed as they scrambled toward the exits.
Security guards shouted conflicting orders.
Some fled.
Others froze.
Adrian didn’t waste a second.
He grabbed Serena by the arm.
“Stay behind me.”
“I’m not leaving that letter.”
“You already have it.”
She looked down.
Her fingers were still wrapped around the folded page from her mother.
Relief washed over her.
The rest of the documents were inside the briefcase slung over Adrian’s shoulder.
“Run!”
They sprinted through the station.
Another masked man stepped into their path.
He swung his rifle upward.
Adrian slammed the briefcase into the man’s face.
Bone cracked.
The attacker staggered.
Adrian followed with a brutal punch that sent him sprawling across the polished floor.
Serena stared.
The mysterious man who had silently watched over her for five years fought with terrifying efficiency.
No wasted movement.
No hesitation.
As though he had done this countless times before.
A shrill alarm suddenly blared throughout the station.
Metal shutters began sliding down over several exits.
“They’re sealing the station,” Adrian muttered.
“What?”
“They’ve hacked the security system.”
Serena’s stomach dropped.
They weren’t just chasing her.
They had planned this.
A trap.
The lights flickered again.
Then the station was bathed in an eerie red emergency glow.
Everything looked like a nightmare.
A voice crackled over the public-address system.
It wasn’t the usual announcement.
It was a man’s voice.
Cold.
Distorted.
“Attention.”
Every gunman stopped moving.
Even Adrian’s expression hardened.
The voice continued.
“Miss Serena Romano.”
Her heart stopped.
“There is nowhere left for you to run.”
Passengers looked around in confusion.
Some turned toward Serena.
Others simply cried harder.
“You possess property that belongs to us.”
The voice paused.
“Return the archive.”
Archive.
Again.
“If you surrender willingly…”
Another pause.
“We will allow everyone else to leave alive.”
Silence swept through the station.
Hundreds of frightened eyes slowly shifted toward Serena.
A little girl clung to her mother’s leg.
An elderly man trembled beside an overturned suitcase.
A young couple crouched behind a ticket machine.
All of them…
Looking at her.
She could feel the weight of their fear.
The distorted voice spoke once more.
“You have sixty seconds to decide.”
The announcement ended.
For several agonizing moments, no one moved.
Then whispers spread through the crowd.
“Who is she?”
“She’s the reason they’re here.”
“Give them whatever they want!”
Someone pointed directly at Serena.
A frightened businessman shouted, “Just hand it over!”
Another voice joined in.
“Don’t get us killed!”
Within seconds, panic turned into anger.
People began backing away from her as if she carried a deadly disease.
One man stepped forward.
“You heard them,” he said. “Give them the case.”
Another nodded.
“My wife is pregnant.”
A woman burst into tears.
“Please…”
Serena’s grip tightened around the letter.
She hadn’t asked for any of this.
Five years ago, she had lost everything.
Now strangers were begging her to sacrifice the only chance she had to learn the truth.
Adrian leaned close.
“Don’t listen to them.”
“They’ll kill these people.”
“They’ll kill them anyway.”
She looked at him in horror.
“How can you know that?”
His eyes never left the advancing gunmen.
“Because these men don’t leave witnesses.”
As if to prove his words, one of the masked soldiers casually aimed his rifle not at Serena, but at a terrified station employee kneeling behind a ticket counter.
The man held up his hands.
“I don’t know anything!”
A single shot rang out.
He collapsed instantly.
Screams exploded through the station.
The execution shattered any illusion that surrender would save lives.
Adrian drew a slow breath.
“They’ve started.”
Before Serena could react, another voice echoed across the station.
This one wasn’t distorted.
It came from somewhere above.
A balcony overlooking the main hall.
A tall man stepped into view, dressed in an immaculate charcoal suit.
No mask.
No weapon visible.
Just an air of absolute authority.
He looked down at Serena with a faint, almost amused smile.
Then he spoke words that turned her blood to ice.
“Welcome home, Princess Romano.”
And every masked gunman lowered their weapons, not in surrender, but in respect.
He was their leader.
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