Chapter 6 - The Trap at the Lighthouse
Pearl’s heart pounded wildly against her ribs as she backed away from the clinic window.
"Pearl, dear, what is it?" the elderly woman asked, noticing the sudden terror on the young doctor's face.
"Evelyn, listen to me very carefully," Pearl whispered frantically, locking the clinic's front door and grabbing her coat. "I need you to slip out through the back cellar door. Go to Thomas’s house and tell him to lock his doors. Do not let anyone see you."
"Who are those men?" Evelyn gasped.
"Dangerous people," Pearl said, her voice shaking as she gently ushered the old woman toward the cellar steps. "Go! Now!"
Once the back door clicked shut, Pearl pulled her phone from her drawer. For two months, she had kept it turned off, its battery drained. Now, with trembling fingers, she plugged it into a portable battery pack and powered it on.
She didn't call the local sheriff—two deputies with small handguns stood zero chance against cartel hitmen carrying automatic rifles.
She dialed the one number she had memorized since she was twenty years old.
Three hundred miles away, driving at extreme speeds up Highway 1 in the middle of a torrential rainstorm, Cornelius’s phone buzzed on the dashboard.
He glanced at the screen.
INCOMING CALL: PEARL
Cornelius slammed his foot on the brake, bringing the heavy Mercedes to a screeching stop on the wet highway shoulder. He grabbed the phone, his voice desperate.
"Pearl! Pearl, where are you?!"
"Cornelius," her voice came through the speaker, breathless, terrified, and laced with wind noise. "They're here."
Cornelius’s blood ran colder than the ice Atlantic. "Who is there, Pearl? Who?!"
"The Romano family," Pearl gasped, her voice echoing as if she were running through stone corridors. "Three men. They have guns. They tracked my medical delivery to Blackwood Cove. Cornelius... they're hunting me."
A sound of pure, primordial rage ripped from Cornelius’s throat. His knuckles turned white as he slammed his fist against the steering wheel, shattering the leather cover.
"Listen to me, Pearl!" Cornelius roared over the phone, putting the car back into gear and slamming the accelerator to the floor, the engine screaming as the car launched forward at over a hundred miles an hour. "I am forty minutes south of your location! I am coming! Where are you right now?!"
"I locked myself inside the old lighthouse at the edge of the cliffs," Pearl sobbed, the sound of heavy boots kicking against a thick iron door audible in the background of the call. "The door is iron, but they have tools! They're going to break through!"
"Pearl, listen to my voice!" Cornelius pleaded, tears of pure terror filling his eyes as he pushed the car to its absolute limit through the blinding rain. "Get to the top of the tower! Lock the hatch behind you! Do not give up! I swear on my life, I will tear them apart before they lay a single finger on you or our child!"
"Hurry, Cornelius!" Pearl cried out as the distant sound of shattering iron rang through the phone line. "Please... hurry!"
The line cut to static.
May you like
Cornelius threw the phone onto the passenger seat, his dark eyes fixed on the rain-slicked highway ahead. The cold, calculated mobster was gone. All that remained was a desperate father and husband, racing against death to save the only woman he had ever loved.
"Hold on, Pearl," Cornelius whispered into the storm. "Just hold on."
