Chapter 5 - The Fire in Beacon Hill
The first explosion shook the entire building.
Glass shattered somewhere downstairs. Eli began screaming. Noah followed, his tiny body shaking against mine.
Daniel moved instantly.
“Anna, take the babies upstairs.”
“No.”
“Now.”
“I am not leaving you every time something explodes.”
His face tightened. “This isn’t an argument.”
“It is if you want me to survive it.”
Mara appeared in the doorway holding a handgun.
“Mr. Hawthorne, the front security team is down. They came through the garage.”
“How many?”
“Six. Maybe more.”
Daniel looked at me.
“Go with Mara.”
“You’re hurt.”
“And you have two infants.”
That ended the argument.
Mara led me through a hidden door behind a bookshelf. We entered a narrow passageway inside the walls of the brownstone.
“You have secret tunnels?” I whispered.
“Boston has old buildings,” she said. “Old buildings have secrets.”
Gunshots echoed behind us.
I held the babies tighter.
At the end of the passage, Mara opened a steel door leading into another townhouse.
“Keep moving,” she said.
“Where are we going?”
“Out.”
We crossed through a basement filled with antique furniture, climbed a stairwell, and emerged into a quiet kitchen belonging to what looked like an entirely different home.
A man in pajamas stared at us.
“Mara?” he asked.
“Emergency route,” she said.
He nodded as if armed strangers and crying babies were a normal Tuesday night.
Outside, rain had begun again.
Mara led me through a garden gate to a waiting car.
But before we reached it, someone stepped out from behind the hedge.
He wore a police uniform.
My body froze.
“Ma’am,” he said. “Put the children down and step away.”
Mara raised her weapon.
“He’s not police.”
The man smiled.
“I am whatever I need to be.”
Then Daniel appeared from the darkness.
I never saw where he came from.
One second, he was gone.
The next, he slammed into the fake cop with enough force to send both men crashing into the stone path.
The gun went off.
Mara shoved me into the car.
“Drive!” she shouted at the driver.
“No!” I screamed. “Daniel!”
The driver did not move.
Mara fired once into the air. The attacker rolled away. Daniel grabbed the gun and pointed it at him.
Then Daniel looked at me through the rain.
“Go!”
This time, I obeyed.
The car sped away.
I pressed both babies against me and watched Daniel disappear behind us.
A few minutes later, Mara’s phone rang.
She listened without speaking.
Then she looked at me.
“Daniel is alive.”
I exhaled so hard it hurt.
“But,” she added, “the man who attacked us had a message.”
“What message?”
Mara’s face went grim.
May you like
“Your name was written on his hand.”
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