Chapter 5 - The Glass and the Gun
Hollis slid the chain free and unlocked the deadbolt. She pulled the door open six inches, keeping her body firmly in the gap.
Standing under the dim yellow bulb of the hallway was Sullivan Vane.
He did not look like the monster the neighborhood whispered about, nor did he look like the polished heir featured in the society pages. He looked like an animal that had run through brambles for three days without water.
His heavy wool coat was soaked at the shoulders with melting snow. His jaw was covered in several days of dark stubble, his eyes bloodshot, dark rings sunk deep into his hollowed cheeks. His left hand was bare, scarred across the knuckles; his right was shoved deep into his coat pocket, the outline of an automatic pistol clearly visible against the heavy wool.
His eyes flicked from Hollis’s face, down to the cast-iron skillet in her right hand, and then past her shoulder into the darkened room.
When his gaze landed on Wynn huddled on the cot, something fractured in his expression. The terrifying stillness of his face broke, replaced by a sudden, jagged agony.
“Wynn,” he whispered.
He moved forward.
Hollis did not step aside. She raised the skillet, positioning herself directly in his path.
“Take off your coat,” Hollis said.
Sullivan froze. He looked down at Hollis as if she were speaking an ancient, forgotten language. “Excuse me?”
“Your coat is wet with freezing slush,” Hollis said, her voice flat, unwavering. “You’ll bring the cold into the room, and she’s already burning with fever. Take it off, leave the gun in the hall, or you don’t cross this threshold.”
In the shadows behind them, Wynn choked back a sob. “Sully... please.”
Sullivan stared at Hollis. For five terrifying seconds, the hallway was so silent Hollis could hear the drip of water from his coat hem onto the floorboards. Men had died in this city for merely failing to lower their eyes in his presence. She was an unarmed janitor holding cooking equipment, barring him from his own family.
Then, slowly, Sullivan Vane took his hand out of his pocket.
He drew a heavy blued-steel pistol, held it by the barrel, and laid it deliberately on the windowsill in the hallway.
Next, he peeled off his soaking, thousand-dollar cashmere coat and draped it over the wooden banister outside.
He stood in only a dark charcoal suit, his broad chest rising and falling, completely unarmed.
“May I come in now, ma’am?” he asked, his tone flat, deadly polite.
May you like
Hollis stepped back and pulled the door wide. “Wipe your feet.”
***
