Chapter 4

Evelyn POV:

I finally drifted into a fitful, painkiller-induced sleep, dreaming of falling from a great height. My only goal was to survive the night and call my lawyer in the morning. Tomorrow, I would start dismantling the life Eugene Blair had built.

A sharp, insistent knocking on my hospital room door jolted me awake. The digital clock on the wall glowed: 3:17 AM.

It was probably a nurse with more medication. I pressed the button to unlock the door.

"Come in," I mumbled, my voice thick with sleep.

The knocking didn' t stop. It grew louder, more frantic. It wasn' t knocking anymore; it was pounding. A heavy, rhythmic thudding that vibrated through the floor.

A sliver of fear, cold and sharp, pierced the drug-induced haze. This wasn' t a nurse.

I squinted at the door. Through the small, reinforced window, I could see a silhouette. Then another. My heart leaped into my throat.

It was them. The men from the warehouse.

The spiderweb tattoo on the leader' s neck was unmistakable even in the dim hallway light.

How? Why were they here? Did Eugene send them back to finish the job? The thought was so monstrous, so beyond the pale, that my mind refused to accept it.

Panic, pure and absolute, seized me. My fingers scrabbled for the emergency call button next to my bed. I slammed my palm down on the red plastic disk.

Nothing happened.

No blaring alarm. No rush of footsteps in the hall. Only the deafening sound of my own blood roaring in my ears and the relentless pounding on the door.

I hit it again. And again. It was dead. Useless.

With a splintering crack, the door frame gave way. The door flew open, slamming against the interior wall.

The three men filled the doorway, their expressions grim. The leader grinned, a humorless slash in his coarse face.

"Looking for help?" he sneered, holding up a small electronic device with a blinking light. "Jammer. No calls in or out. The nurses on this floor are having a nice little nap, too. Courtesy of a friend."

My mind raced. A friend. Eugene. It had to be. He was tying up loose ends.

"What do you want?" I gasped, trying to shrink back into the mattress, a useless gesture. I was trapped, pinned by the metal cage on my leg.

"The boss wasn' t happy," the man said, advancing into the room. "He said you were being unreasonable. Still talking about divorce. Still making threats. He' s a man who values a stable home."

The bitter irony was a punch to the gut.

"He sent you," I whispered, the horror of it finally sinking in. "Eugene sent you to... to kill me."

"Kill you? Nah." He chuckled, a low, guttural sound. "That' s too messy. And he still needs you. No, this is... a correction. A permanent one."

I started to scream, a raw, primal sound of terror, but one of the other men was on me in a flash, his hand clamping over my mouth, the stench of stale cigarettes and sweat filling my nostrils.

He tore the IV from my arm. I struggled, thrashing against him, but it was like fighting a brick wall. My broken body was no match for his brute strength.

"Please," I begged, the word muffled against his palm. "I' ll give you money. Anything. Double what he' s paying you. Just leave."

The leader paused, a flicker of greed in his eyes. "How much?"

"Ten million," I choked out, the number plucked from thin air. "I can get it. I swear. Just let me go."

He considered it for a moment. Then he laughed. "Nice try. But the boss wants this done tonight. And he already paid a bonus."

He nodded to the third man, who was holding a heavy, blunt object. A tire iron.

"He said to make sure you can' t walk away this time," the leader said, his voice dropping to a conversational tone that was more terrifying than any shout. "And since you' re so worried about heirs... he figured we could solve that problem for you, too."

My eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated horror. I understood. This wasn't just about my leg.

I screamed again, biting down on the hand over my mouth, tasting blood. The man yelped and slapped me, hard. My head snapped back against the pillow.

The man with the tire iron stepped forward. He looked down at my good leg, my left leg, with a cold, professional detachment.

Then he raised the iron.

The last thing I saw before a universe of pain exploded behind my eyes was the small, blinking red light of a camera, propped on the bedside table, aimed directly at me.

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