Chapter 4 - Blood and Tea
The thunderstorm peaked at midnight. Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the high, arched windows of the West Wing in strobes of brilliant white.
Riley couldn't sleep. She sat in her small staff suite down the hall, wrapped in an oversized cardigan, trying to read a paperback novel. But the heavy, suffocating tension hanging over the mansion made it impossible to focus.
At 1:15 AM, she heard it.
It wasn't thunder. It was the sharp, muffled pop-pop-pop of suppressed gunfire, followed by the shattering of glass near the ground-floor conservatory.
Riley dropped her book. Her medical training kicked in before her fear could catch up. She grabbed her emergency trauma bag from the foot of her bed and sprinted out into the dimly lit corridor.
The mansion was in chaos. Armed men in black tactical gear were moving through the halls. Shouted commands and the heavy thud of boots echoed from the main staircase.
She didn't run toward the exit. She ran straight toward Declan’s master suite.
When she threw open the heavy double doors, the room was dark except for the flashing red emergency lights on the perimeter panel.
Declan was on the floor beside his bed.
He had dragged himself out of mattress, his heavy upper body hauling his useless legs across the carpet toward the nightstand where a high-caliber handgun was mounted beneath the wood. His face was twisted in agony, his breathing ragged.
"Declan!" Riley gasped, dropping to her knees beside him.
"Get... out," he choked out, his fingers reaching for the grip of the pistol. "Infiltration... Moretti’s men. Get to the safe room... behind the pantry."
"Shut up," Riley snapped, pulling his arm over her shoulder. "I'm not leaving you here to be target practice."
"I can't walk, you idiot!" he shouted, his voice raw with fury and humiliation. "Leave me!"
"I said shut up!"
Riley braced her feet against the heavy oak bed frame. Using every ounce of strength in her legs, she hauled Declan upward, pulling his heavy frame against her chest. He was massive, a solid wall of muscle and dead weight, but adrenaline surged through her veins like liquid fire.
She dragged him backward, hauling him toward the reinforced walk-in closet at the rear of the suite.
The bedroom door burst open.
A man in a black tactical mask stepped into the room, a suppressed submachine gun raised to his shoulder. He swept the dark room, his eyes locking onto Riley and Declan near the closet door.
"Target spotted," the intruder grunted into his radio headset, raising the barrel.
Before the man could pull the trigger, Declan’s hand whipped up.
BANG.
The sound inside the bedroom was deafening. The intruder froze, a neat red hole appearing in the center of his tactical mask, before he collapsed forward onto the hardwood floor like a sack of wet cement.
Declan lowered the heavy revolver, his hand rock-solid, his eyes ice cold. He looked up at Riley, whose face was completely pale, her ears ringing from the gunshot.
"Get us in the closet," Declan ordered, his voice terrifyingly calm.
Riley snapped out of her shock, shoving the heavy steel door of the walk-in closet shut behind them and throwing the electronic deadbolt.
The closet was pitch black, smelling of cedar, expensive leather, and copper blood. Outside, heavy boots slammed against the bedroom door, followed by a barrage of gunfire hitting the reinforced steel of the closet. The door groaned, but held.
Riley collapsed against the wall, sliding down to the floor, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. Beside her, Declan slumped back against a rack of tailored suits, the gun resting loosely in his lap.
"Are you hit?" Riley gasped, immediately reaching out in the dark, her hands searching his shoulders, his chest, checking for wetness.
"No," Declan rasped. His hand came up, catching her wrist. His grip was tight, his pulse pounding against her palm. "Are you?"
"I... I don't think so," she whispered, her voice trembling now that the adrenaline was beginning to fade.
In the small, enclosed dark of the safe room, they were so close she could feel the heat radiating from his chest. His thumb brushed against the inside of her wrist, a slow, unconscious movement that sent a strange shiver down her spine.
"You should have run," Declan said softly. The anger was gone, replaced by a quiet, heavy awe. "You could have been killed, Riley."
"I'm your nurse," she whispered, her dark eyes finding his in the faint glow of the door's digital keypad. "I don't leave my patients."
"I'm not a patient," he murmured, his thumb moving slightly higher, tracing the sensitive skin of her forearm. "I'm a target."
"You're an idiot," she retorted, though her voice lacked its usual bite. "A stubborn, heavy, arrogant idiot."
Outside, the gunfire suddenly stopped. Heavy shouting echoed through the bedroom, followed by Gabe's loud, panicked voice.
"Declan! Boss! It's clear! They're down!"
Declan didn't call out immediately. He kept his eyes locked on Riley's face, his hand still holding her wrist tightly in the dark.
"Next time," Declan murmured, his voice a low, dark promise, "you run."
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"Next time," Riley shot back, leaning in just a fraction of an inch, "lift your own damn feet."
Declan’s mouth twitched, and for the first time since she had met him, a low, genuine laugh echoed from his chest—a sound so rare and deep it rattled the quiet darkness of the room.
