Ellie's POV
The word on the photo screamed in her head. Partners. Her father's smiling, youthful face was pressed cheek-to-cheek with a man whose eyes, even then, held a familiar, predatory warmth. Victor Costa. Vito. Her dad hadn't just been a victim. He'd been a part of it. The ground beneath Ellie's life didn't just crack; it dissolved into quicksand.
She couldn't breathe. She couldn't speak. She just stared at the Polaroid in her trembling hand.
Nicholas snatched the photo and the notebook from the lockbox, his movements swift. "We don't have time for this."
"What do you mean we don't have time?" Her voice was a hollow rasp. "This is everything! He knew him! He was with him!"
"And he left him," Nicholas said, his eyes scanning the hotel room's door, the window, the vents. "That notebook is his confession and his death sentence. If the Costas are sending you pictures of his shop, they think you have it. Or that you know where it is. Finding it here means we're holding their most dangerous secret." He shoved the items into an inner jacket pocket. "We are now a priority target. Not an inconvenience. A priority."
As if summoned by his words, the hotel room phone rang. The shrill, old-fashioned sound was a shock in the tense silence. Everyone froze.
Marco looked at Nicholas, who gave a sharp nod. Marco picked up the receiver. He didn't speak. He just listened. After three seconds, his face hardened into granite. He slammed the phone down. "Front desk. A 'city inspector' demanding immediate access to check for a reported gas leak on this floor. He was described as impatient. And wearing a snake tattoo on his neck."
The man from the diner. The one who had winked at her.
"They're here," Nicholas said, the words flat and final. "Lockdown. Now."
The room exploded into motion. Marco was already shoving the heavy dresser in front of the door. Nicholas grabbed Ellie's arm, not gently, and pulled her toward the bathroom. "In. Now."
The bathroom was tiny, tiled, and claustrophobic. But at the back, behind a sliding plastic panel that pretended to be part of the wall, was a space just big enough for one person to crouch. A panic hole. A hiding place.
"Get in. Do not come out. Do not make a sound. No matter what you hear." Nicholas's eyes burned into hers, his hand on her shoulder. "Do you understand? This is not a game. This is lockdown."
Ellie nodded, numb. She scrambled into the dark, dusty space. The panel slid shut behind her, plunging her into perfect blackness. She was sealed in a tomb within a tomb.
For a moment, there was only the pounding of her own heart and the ragged saw of her breath. She tried to quiet it, listening.
She heard the main hotel room door shudder under a heavy impact. A muffled voice shouted, "Hotel security! Open up!"
A lie. She knew it was a lie.
Then, Nicholas's voice, calm through the door. "Show me a badge under the peephole."
A pause. Another, harder THUD against the door. The dresser scraped against the floor.
The sounds that followed were a brutal symphony. The splintering crash of the door giving way. The roar of Marco's voice. The sickening thuds of fists hitting flesh, bodies hitting walls. A lamp shattered. Glass sprayed. Grunts of pain, sharp curses in Italian and English.
Ellie pressed her hands over her mouth, biting down on her knuckle to keep from screaming. She squeezed her eyes shut in the dark, but it didn't help. She could see it. Nicholas and Marco, outnumbered, fighting for their lives—for her life—in that cheap hotel room.
The fight seemed to go on forever, moving from the main room toward the bathroom. She heard a man cry out, "The girl! Find the girl!"
Her blood ran cold.
Then, a new sound. A deep, concussive BOOM that was different from all the others. It wasn't a body hitting a wall. It was a sound that parted the air, sharp and final.
A gunshot.
The silence that followed was the most terrifying sound of all. It was a thick, heavy quiet, broken only by a low, pained groan that was cut off abruptly.
No. No, no, no.
Tears streamed hot and silent down Ellie's face. Who was hurt? Who was gone? Was she alone? She waited for the panel to slide open, for the tattooed man's face to appear in the crack.
Seconds ticked by. Each one was an agony.
Then, a scrape right outside the plastic panel. A hand fumbling.
Ellie recoiled, pressing herself into the back of the tiny space, ready to fight with her bare hands.
The panel slid open.
Light from the bathroom flooded in, outlining a figure. It was Nicholas. A fresh, deep cut sliced across his cheekbone, dripping blood down his neck. His shirt was torn, his knuckles raw and swollen. His eyes, wide and dark with adrenaline, found hers in the hiding place. He didn't speak. He just reached in, his grip firm and urgent around her wrist. "We have to move. Now."