Chapter 3 - The Threat at the Door
Two days later, the fragile peace shattered.
Harper was sitting at the small, peeling kitchen table in the Dorchester apartment, helping eight-year-old Noah with his math homework, when a heavy, rhythmic pounding shook the front door.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Noah dropped his pencil, his eyes wide with absolute terror. He scrambled off his chair and hid behind Harper’s legs, trembling like a leaf. "Is it him? Is it Derek?"
Harper’s blood ran ice cold. She stood up slowly, her fractured ribs aching, and motioned for Noah to stay back in the hallway closet.
"Open up, Harper! I know you're in there!" Derek’s voice roared through the thin wood of the door, slurred and dripping with venom. "You think you can pack up and run from me? You think some cheap slumlord in Dorchester is going to keep you safe from a cop?"
The lock rattled violently. Derek was throwing his weight against the frame. The deadbolt groaned.
"Derek, go away!" Harper shouted, her voice shaking despite her best efforts to sound brave. "We're done! I filed for divorce!"
"You didn't file shit!" Derek screamed, kicking the bottom of the door with his heavy boot. The wood splintered around the latch. "Open this door right now, or I swear to God I'll kick it in, drag you out by your hair, and arrest your little brother for vagrancy!"
Panic seized Harper's throat. She looked around the cramped apartment. There was no back door. No fire escape. They were trapped on the third floor of a condemned tenement.
Ring.
Her cell phone buzzed violently on the kitchen counter. She snatched it up. The caller ID read: G. Ashford.
She swiped answer instantly, pressing the phone to her ear. "Mr. Ashford—he's here. Derek is at the door. He's going to break it down—"
"Breathe," Gabriel's voice came through the speaker, cool, calm, and carrying the chilling detachment of a general ordering an airstrike. "Look out your peephole, Harper."
With trembling fingers, Harper crept to the front door and peeked through the distorted glass.
What she saw made her gasp.
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Three black SUVs had blocked off both ends of the narrow Dorchester street. A dozen men in sharp charcoal suits were calmly stepping out of the vehicles. Leading them was Gabriel Ashford himself, walking with slow, deliberate steps toward the building entrance, his hands tucked inside his wool coat pockets.
"Stay inside," Gabriel murmured into the phone. "And don't look away."
