Chapter 6 - Wolves in the Snow
The sound came from the street below: the low, synchronized rumble of heavy V8 engines idling.
Hollis crossed the living room swiftly, keeping low beneath the window sill, peeling back the edge of the yellowed lace curtain.
Parked across the street from her dilapidated apartment complex were three identical black Cadillac Escalades with tinted windows. The slush on their tires hadn't even begun to melt yet; they had just arrived.
Men in dark charcoal wool coats were stepping out. They weren't police. They carried an unmistakable posture—shoulders broad, hands resting casually inside their coat pockets near concealed leather holsters, scanning the alleyways with predatory precision.
One of them stopped at the corner of the alley where Hollis had parked her Honda earlier that morning.
He bent down, examining the frozen snow. A thin, dark rust-colored drop had frozen into the crust—blood that had dripped from Elena’s coat while Hollis was carrying her inside.
"Damn it," Hollis hissed under her breath.
"They're here, aren't they?" Elena’s voice came from behind her.
The girl was leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen, clutching her side, her face chalk-white. She had forced herself up from the mattress, using the walls for support.
"They found the blood trail from the car," Hollis whispered, her mind racing. "They're going to search floor by floor."
"Leave me," Elena said, her voice dead and flat. "Give me a knife. I'll stay here. When they come through the door, you tell them I broke in while you were at work. Take your boy and run."
"Shut up," Hollis snapped, turning on her with a ferocity that startled the mafia princess. "I don't sacrifice people in my home. And I certainly don't leave young girls to be butchered by animals."
"You don't understand Marco’s men!"
"I understand bullies," Hollis said coldly, moving toward the hall closet. "My father was one, my ex-husband was one, and I've spent the last six years surviving them. Now get your boots on."
She pulled out a set of heavy winter coats and the spare master key she kept from her building superintendent days.
"The fire escape is watched," Hollis muttered, peering through the rear peephole. "They'll have a man at the alley exit. But this building was built in 1920. There’s an old coal chute behind the laundry room that connects to the abandoned storm drainage network beneath 5th Avenue."
A sudden, heavy thump echoed from the bottom of the stairwell three floors down.
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Then came the sound of splintering wood as the front security door of the tenement was kicked off its hinges.
***
