Chapter 3 - THE DIAMOND BRACELET
The tiny red light on the detonator blinked.
Once.
Twice.
The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the whistling wind whipping through the shattered window.
Gabriel stared at the small black device resting on the plush carpet. He slowly turned his head to look at Serena.
His fiancée was curled into a ball on the floor, weeping hysterically, her diamond bracelet flashing under the emergency lights that had just kicked on.
“You brought the trigger into the room,” Gabriel said. His voice wasn’t a shout. It was a terrifying, hollow rasp. “You were going to drop the building with us inside.”
“No!” Serena shrieked, crawling backward away from the box. “Gabriel, I swear! Julian gave me that box. He told me it was a GPS tracker! He said he needed to know when you left the hotel so they could intercept you at Section A!”
Answer one, open two.
Serena wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. She was a pawn.
Julian, the desperate brother, hadn’t just sold Gabriel out to the Chicago syndicate to pay his debts. He had sold his own sister out, too. He had handed her a detonator disguised as a tracker, intending for her to blow up the hotel while she was still inside it, erasing all the evidence.
“Russo,” Gabriel commanded, his eyes never leaving the blinking light. “Clear the room. Get everyone into the service hallway. Now.”
The massive bodyguard started shoving terrified guests and staff toward the kitchen doors.
Anna tried to push herself up from the floor, but Gabriel’s heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder, keeping her low.
“Stay down,” he ordered, his eyes sweeping the shattered window. “The sniper is on the roof of the Monroe building across the street. If we stand up, we’re dead.”
“We have to move!” Anna panicked, staring at the detonator. “If that light turns solid red—”
“It’s a proximity trigger,” Gabriel interrupted, his voice unnervingly calm. “My brother used them in Afghanistan. The light is blinking because the receiver in the basement is trying to establish a connection. If the signal connects, the light goes solid, and the bomb detonates.”
“So we leave!”
“If we move the trigger, the signal strength changes. The receiver might register it as a detonation command. We have to jam it.”
Gabriel looked at Anna. The intense, evaluating stare stripped away her uniform, her nametag, her invisible status. He was looking at her like she was the only person in the world who could save him.
“You know this building,” Gabriel said. “Where is the main telecom relay on this floor?”
Anna’s mind raced. “It’s in the electrical closet behind the coat check. But it’s locked with a cipher.”
“Can you open it?”
“I have the master override code. I use it when the Wi-Fi goes down for the POS systems.”
“Good.” Gabriel pulled his heavy, charcoal overcoat off and threw it over the small velvet box, shielding the blinking light from view.
He grabbed Anna’s hand.
“On my count,” Gabriel whispered, “we crawl to the bar. We keep the oak counter between us and the window. Ready?”
Anna nodded, her heart hammering against her bruised ribs.
“One. Two. Go!”
They scrambled across the carpet. A third bullet tore through the air, embedding itself in the plush upholstery of a dining chair inches from Anna’s face.
She screamed, scrambling faster, and threw herself behind the heavy oak bar. Gabriel slid in right behind her, his gun raised, watching the window.
“Go to the closet,” Gabriel ordered, pointing toward the coat check. “I’ll cover you. Cut the main fiber optic trunk. It’ll kill the building’s internal network and flood the frequency. It might be enough to jam the receiver in the basement.”
Anna didn't hesitate. She scrambled on her hands and knees down the narrow hallway behind the bar.
She reached the electrical closet. Her hands were shaking violently as she punched the override code into the keypad.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Green light.
The door clicked open.
Anna pulled herself inside the cramped closet, illuminated by the harsh glow of hundreds of server racks.
She found the main fiber optic trunk—a thick bundle of orange cables running into a massive steel box.
She grabbed a heavy fire extinguisher off the wall bracket.
She raised it above her head and brought the heavy metal base down directly onto the plastic casing of the trunk line.
CRACK.
Sparks flew. The servers shrieked a high-pitched warning alarm. The lights in the closet went entirely black.
Anna dropped the extinguisher, gasping for breath in the dark.
Did it work?
She pushed the closet door open and peered back toward the dining room.
Gabriel was still crouched behind the bar. He looked toward the overcoat covering the detonator.
He gave Anna a single, sharp nod.
The blinking light had stopped. The jam had worked.
“Russo!” Gabriel yelled into the dark. “We’re clear! Get them down the stairs!”
Anna let out a sob of relief, slumping against the wall.
They were going to live. They just had to get down forty flights of stairs.
She started to crawl back toward Gabriel.
But as she reached the edge of the bar, a hand clamped down on her ankle.
It wasn't Gabriel.
Anna was yanked violently backward into the shadows of the coat check hallway. She screamed, but a gloved hand clamped hard over her mouth.
A man pressed a cold, steel blade against her throat.
It was the man who had taken the ticket from Serena.
Julian.
“Not a sound,” Julian hissed in her ear, his breath hot and smelling of stale alcohol.
Gabriel appeared at the end of the hallway, his gun raised. He froze when he saw Julian holding Anna hostage.
“Let her go, Julian,” Gabriel said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. “The bomb is jammed. Your plan failed.”
Julian laughed, a manic, desperate sound. He pressed the knife harder against Anna’s skin. She could feel a thin line of blood trickling down her neck.
“You think I’m the one who planted the bomb, Gabe?” Julian sneered. “You think I have the resources to wire forty stories of limestone?”
The Reversal hit Anna so hard she felt dizzy.
“Who did?” Gabriel demanded.
Julian smiled, his eyes wild in the emergency lights.
“Look out the window, Gabriel,” Julian whispered.
Gabriel didn't look. He kept his gun aimed directly at Julian’s head.
“I said look!” Julian roared.
Slowly, Gabriel shifted his eyes toward the shattered window.
Across the street, on the roof of the Monroe building where the sniper had been, a massive neon sign was usually illuminated.
It was dark now.
But beneath it, hovering in the sky, was a heavy, black tactical helicopter.
And standing in the open side door of the chopper, looking directly through a high-powered scope into the dining room, was Gabriel’s head of security.
May you like
Russo.
“Russo didn't clear the room to save the guests, Gabriel,” Julian laughed hysterically. “He cleared the room so he could lock you inside it.”
