Chapter One

**** Present Day****

Gloria couldn’t quite figure out what had woken her. She noticed the time on her clock was three am, which was odd because she didn’t normally wake up to pee until about five. After she saw the time, however, she’d noticed the hole in her wall. She stared at the perfectly round hole from where she lay, paralyzed in bed. It took all of her willpower to sit up straight. It took a few more minutes of rebooting to save up enough to put her toes on the floor, followed by her heel. She walked toward the hole and placed her fingers over it. She pulled her hand away when she realized what it was: a bullet hole.

She swiveled around to look at the window. The hair along her arms stood on end as she stepped carefully toward the shattered glass. Her heart raced as it threatened to break free from her ribcage. She tried to analyze where the bullet may have come from and her only guess was the guard post approximately 300 feet away where the glow of the moon was swallowed whole by the darkness of the thick forest surrounding her prison. She noticed something along the shadows of that forest: a small gleam, like the tiny flicker of a flame. The flame went out and a moment later an explosion rocked the treeline.

Gloria screamed and dropped to the ground as the shockwave from the explosion rocked the house and shattered what remained of her window. Glass cut into her arms and legs where she crouched as if the thin walls could protect her. All at once the compound she’d been kept in for the past month erupted into chaos. Sirens wailed and lights brighter than a football stadium lit up every possible angle of the yard and home.

Not even five seconds after that a second explosion shook the foundation of the house. All the lights and sounds were instantly cut off. An eerie silence invaded the room broken only by Gloria’s short, sharp breaths. The crackling of radios came along with footsteps on the grass below her window. She carefully peeked over the ledge and spied a group of six men fanning out over the open field in the direction of the first explosion. A resounding gunshot erupted from across the field and one man went down. The men in the formation froze and trained their weapons toward the guard post.

“Sniper!” one man yelled a second before the next gun shot echoed across the space and he fell backward.

The remaining four men retreated toward the house and Gloria watched helplessly as four more large caliber bullets penetrated the otherwise peaceful night air. She was stunned to look down and see the six bodies taken out by the invisible sniper. The door to her room opened behind her. Gloria pivoted on the balls of her feet to watch Aleksandr stalk into the room.

He waved his arm for her to get down. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked in a crouch as he continued toward her. “Get down or you’ll get…”

A seventh round went off. She heard the shot before the bullet punctured the windowsill two inches from her head in a downward trajectory that found its mark directly between Aleksandr’s eyes. He dropped face-first on the floor a few feet in front of her. She remained on the balls of her feet, stunned into stillness by what she’d just witnessed. She waited for the next shot to come. She waited for it to penetrate the back of her skull.

Gloria wasn’t sure how long she stayed crouched there, below the window. It may have been five minutes or twenty. However much time had passed, it had been long enough to make the muscles in her calves cramp and burn. Then she heard the next round of gun shots… and they were coming from next to the house, right below her window. She lurched forward, over Aleksandr’s body, toward her bed.

Glass shattered and wood splintered while men yelled that the intruder had made it inside the house. Gun shots continued to ricochet through the walls, up into the ceiling. She had only been in the house for a month and hadn’t been given much freedom to explore. Nonetheless, she could track the movement of the intruder as he or she made their way through the house. Dishes crashed and pots clanged as they went through the kitchen. Men yelled and a machine gun went off as they pushed forward through the downstairs hallway. Paintings fell and priceless porcelain artifacts dropped and tumbled down the stairwell.

Gloria had to think. It was painfully clear who this person was coming for. Sergei was out of town. She hadn’t seen him in over a week. This house was in the woods of Illinois, the closest neighbor nearly ten miles down the canopied gravel driveway. There was no mistaking this person’s target: her.

She looked around her room, trying for the hundredth time since she’d arrived to think of what might be a good weapon. She took the wooden chair by the vanity. Holding it by the top rail, she lifted the chair over her head and brought it back to the floor with all of her strength. Two of the legs snapped off with a crack. Chest heaving, she looked at the vanity mirror. Her nightgown was already covered in blood from the cuts on her arms and legs. Her braid had come undone, unleashing her hair around her face which was flushed with fear and excitement. She blew the hair out of her face and then swung the chair against the mirror. Shards as big as her arm broke off and fell to the desktop.

Gloria stood still as she realized the sounds around her had stopped. Then a floorboard creaked in the hallway. Gunshots filled the air again and Gloria grabbed the two chair legs and a handful of broken glass before running toward her closet. The gunshots ended and she heard someone curse. There was a mumbled taunt and a faint response before the sound turned into flesh against flesh. Someone grunted as they were flung against the wall. There was a hiss, a groan and a scream. Then the door to her bedroom was knocked inward.

Gloria peeked through the slits of her closet. There were two men fighting on the ground in front of her bed. One was wearing a suit, torn around the edges. The earpiece had fallen from his ear and he was bleeding from his head: one of Sergei’s men. The other man, the one underneath and seemingly at a disadvantage, was dressed head to toe in black with a balaclava covering his face. He wore tactical gear with many of the pockets empty as if he’d used everything in his arsenal to get to this point. She noticed a flash of silver and realized Sergei’s man had a knife that he was trying to plunge down into the intruder.

“Fuck. This,” the intruder growled.

The intruder released his hold, allowing Sergei’s man to stab the knife into his chest. He grunted with the impact of the blade. The guard sneered down in triumph as he pressed all of his weight against the handle. Then his face froze at the same time as a muffled gunshot shattered his victory. Sergei’s man tipped sideways. The intruder shoved, forcing the guard to land beside him with a thud.

“Thirty-two,” the man groaned, out of breath, as his head dropped back to the floor.

She watched the intruder recover from her hidden position. He laid there on the ground for a few minutes as if to catch his breath. Then his hand reached up, took the hilt of the dagger and ripped it from his chest with a grunt. He held the blade up in the air to inspect it. He made a sound of approval before tucking it in one of his empty pockets.

He pulled himself up to a sitting position with a pronounced primal yell. He shook his head and placed a hand to it. He looked around, and she noticed the parts of his face not covered by the balaclava were painted black. He grabbed the side of her bed and hauled himself the rest of the way up. He bent backwards until his spine popped then side to side before shaking himself off like a dog. His body stiffened and his head tilted before his eyes flicked to the closet. Gloria gasped and gripped the glass tighter in her hand until it cut into her palm and fingers.

“Hello, little vixen,” the intruder cooed.

Gloria stumbled backward as the intruder’s words gave away his identity. He walked toward the closet one slow stride at a time. With each step she inched further into the safety of her hiding space. He lurched forward, grabbed both door handles and swung them open. She didn’t think, she reacted.

She thrust the glass forward, slashing across his cheek while bringing a chair leg down with her other hand. The glass slipped easily through the skin of his face a second before the leg shattered against the side of his head. He staggered a step, the whites of his eyes wide in shock at her action. He touched his cheek with the tips of his fingers and glanced down at the blood dampening his gloves. She couldn’t see his mouth due to his mask but she could see the narrowing of his eyes and the creasing of his forehead. His dark eyes snapped back up. She gasped as his hand jerked out and gripped her throat. She shrieked as she was ripped from the closet and shoved against the wall beside it. Gloria’s toes skimmed the ground. The outer space of her vision blurred and blackened as his hand constricted against her wind pipe. Those black eyes, once so alluring to her, now threatened to gut her alive through their hatred alone.

“Please,” she croaked out. His hand pulsed, cutting off her air completely for a split second and causing her eyes to bulge. “Please, Frankie, stop.”