Chapter 258
[ 484 words ]
Chapter 258:
Brenna turned her head slowly and stared at Julian, her eyes wide as saucers.
“You… you bought that for me?” Brenna whispered.
Julian swallowed hard and slowly opened the velvet box. Inside was a beautiful, delicate diamond pendant necklace. Not an engagement ring. A gift. Something he had picked up impulsively earlier that evening, intending it for Caroline, but now realized — with startling clarity — belonged to someone else entirely.
Caroline looked at the two of them staring at each other.
𝘈𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘴.𝘤𝘰𝘮
A huge grin spread across her face, though a faint wince tugged at the corner of her mouth as the healing cut on her lower lip stretched with the movement. She let out a soft laugh.
She stepped forward and patted Brenna hard on the shoulder.
“I think I’m going to go finish my soda water,” Caroline announced cheerfully. “You two have a lot to talk about.”
She didn’t wait for a response. She turned around and walked deeper into the dark hallway, leaving the two of them alone.
Caroline’s footsteps were light. She felt amazing.
She followed a glowing red exit sign, looking for the restrooms.
She turned a sharp corner.
Ten feet ahead of her, a heavy metal service door was slowly swinging shut.
In the narrow gap before the door clicked shut, Caroline saw a tall man wearing a long black trench coat.
The man was walking away.
Caroline stopped dead in her tracks.
Her heart stopped beating. The cheerful relief vanished instantly, replaced by a freezing spike of pure adrenaline.
It wasn’t his face. It was the way he walked.
The man moved with a terrifying, silent fluidity. His weight shifted perfectly from heel to toe. It was the highly specialized, energy-conserving gait of a tier-one military assassin.
Caroline’s training kicked in violently. Her brain matched the pattern in a microsecond.
It was the man. The unnamed, professional cleaner who had breached the hospital. The man who had held a scalpel to her throat while she fought to protect Lieutenant Petersen. The man Jarrod had been hunting ever since.
What was a high-level assassin doing sneaking around the service corridors of a Georgetown nightclub?
Every civilian instinct screamed at Caroline to turn around, run back to the crowded bar, and call Jarrod.
But the predator inside her, the operative that Jarrod had been trying to suppress, woke up.
Caroline’s gray eyes turned to absolute ice. Her breathing slowed to a silent, tactical rhythm.
She reached behind her back and quietly unlatched the metal service door, slipping into the dark corridor to track the killer.
The service corridor was a narrow, concrete tunnel.
It smelled heavily of industrial bleach and rotting garbage. A single fluorescent tube flickered overhead, buzzing with a sharp electrical hum.
Caroline moved like a ghost.
She untied the heavy red leather jacket from her waist, letting it hang loose from her left hand, keeping her right hand free. She pressed her back flat against the cold concrete wall, sliding forward inch by inch.
Her eyes scanned the deep shadows ahead.
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