Chapter 4 - Midnight Ambush
Nova’s apartment was on the third floor of a crumbling brick walk-up in South Richmond. The radiator clanked incessantly, and the smell of boiled soup and floor cleaner hung in the hallway.
Nova stood by the kitchen window, peering through the worn blinds into the street below.
A black sedan had been parked by the fire hydrant for forty-five minutes. Engine idling. Headlights off.
In the small living room, her mother Denise lay propped on the sofa, resting her swollen feet. Kai, sitting on the floor with his worn high-school biology textbook, looked up at his sister.
"Nova?" Kai asked, picking up on her tension. "You’ve been standing by that window since you got home. Did something happen at the rich people’s party?"
"Kai, go into the bedroom. Pack Mom’s heart pills, two changes of clothes, and your laptop into a backpack. Now."
Denise sat up, wincing. "Nova, honey, what’s going on? You're scaring your brother."
"We’re leaving," Nova said calmly, opening a hidden compartment beneath the kitchen sink. From behind the plumbing pipes, she retrieved an old steel lockbox. She keyed in a six-digit code.
Inside lay three burner phones, forty thousand dollars in rolled hundred-dollar bills—savings she had kept untouched for nearly a decade—and a sleek, unregistered tactical folding blade.
Before Denise could speak, the front door rattled.
A metallic click echoed through the thin wood. The lock was being picked.
"Into the bathroom. Lock the door. Don't make a sound," Nova commanded. Her voice had lost all traces of the mild-mannered hotel maid. It was flat, lethal, and absolute.
Kai grabbed Denise by the arm and shoved her into the small bathroom, clicking the deadbolt into place.
Nova took three silent steps toward the hallway, melting into the shadows beside the coat rack.
The front door swung open. A tall man in a dark trench coat slipped inside, holding a silenced pistol low at his side. It was Victor Kane’s lead enforcer, sent to retrieve "leverage" on the maid who had crossed Brooke Hathaway.
He took two steps into the dark apartment.
Nova struck like a viper.
She didn't use a weapon. She stepped into his blind spot, her forearm slamming into his throat to cut off his airway, while her right hand seized his gun wrist, twisting it inward.
A sharp *snap* echoed in the foyer as the intruder’s wrist dislocated. The gun dropped harmlessly into Nova’s waiting palm.
In one fluid motion, she swept his legs, slammed him face-down onto the worn linoleum, and pressed the cold muzzle of his own weapon against the base of his skull.
"Who hired you?" Nova whispered into his ear.
The man gasped for air, tears streaming down his face from the agony in his broken wrist. "Hathaway... Brooke Hathaway... Kane Investigations! Please don't shoot! I was just supposed to grab your files and your family's IDs!"
Nova stripped his tactical radio, his wallet, and his cell phone. She ejected the magazine from his pistol, cleared the chambered round, and tossed the dismantled pieces into the trash.
"Tell Brooke Hathaway," Nova said softly, "that if she ever sends someone near my family again, I won't call the police. I will come for her."
She dragged the groaning man out into the hallway and kicked the apartment door shut.
Turning around, she saw the bathroom door open. Kai was standing there, staring at his sister as if looking at a stranger.
"Nova..." Kai whispered, trembling. "What... what are you?"
Before she could answer, headlights flooded the front window. A sleek armored SUV screeched to a halt outside.
The front door opened again, and Grayson Cole burst through, his tuxedo jacket gone, accompanied by two former Secret Service bodyguards.
He took in the broken lock, the blood on the linoleum, and Nova standing in combat stance.
"Nova," Grayson breathed, rushing toward her. "Are you okay?"
May you like
"Mr. Cole," Nova said, her eyes cold as winter. "You brought this to my doorstep."
***
