Chapter 2 - The Silver Locket in the Snow
The private helipad on the roof of the Sterling Auction House was swept by a freezing London wind, but the chill was nothing compared to the ice in my veins.
Elias Thorne’s hand was a vice around my bicep as he dragged me through the heavy fire doors. Behind us, the stairwell echoed with the terrifying sounds of professional violence—the sharp, suppressed thwack of automatic weapons and the heavy thud of bodies hitting marble stairs. My gray maintenance uniform clung to my back, soaked in a cold sweat. I was holding onto my brass feather duster like a lifeline.
"Keep your head down, Leo!" Elias roared over the deafening mechanical scream of the black helicopter waiting on the landing pad. Its rotors whipped the freezing rain into a frenzy.
"They're going to kill us!" I yelled back, my boots slipping on the wet tarmac. "You said they were your enemies!"
"They are!" Elias barked, pushing me toward the open side door of the chopper. "The Black Forest Guild doesn't leave loose ends, and you just proved you're the biggest loose end in history."
We scrambled into the leather-lined cabin. Two of Elias's massive security men dove in after us, slamming the heavy sliding door shut just as the rooftop access doors blew off their hinges in a shower of sparks and twisted metal. Four men in tactical gear poured onto the roof, raising their rifles.
As the helicopter violently pitched sideways and surged into the night sky, I looked out the reinforced window. The lead mercenary wasn't aiming at the helicopter. He was looking directly at me. And in the harsh glare of the helipad floodlights, I saw him reach into his tactical vest and throw something hard onto the tarmac.
It was a small, glittering object. Even from fifty feet in the air, the shape was unmistakable.
My lungs seized. The air vanished from the cabin.
"Take us to the safehouse in Zurich," Elias commanded the pilot, straightening his bespoke suit as if he hadn't just narrowly escaped a firing squad. He looked at me, his eyes softening slightly. "You're in shock. Breathe, Leo. You're safe now."
"Stop the helicopter," I whispered.
"Don't be ridiculous," Elias sighed, opening a compartment and pouring a glass of amber liquid. "You've just been thrust into a world you don't understand. I am going to explain everything."
"I said stop the helicopter!" I lunged forward, grabbing Elias by the lapels of his thousand-dollar suit. His security guards instantly drew their weapons, pressing cold steel against my temples.
Elias raised a hand, waving them off. He looked at me with cold, calculating intrigue. "Why would you want to go back down there?"
"Because that man on the roof didn't throw a grenade," I choked out, my hands trembling as I let go of his jacket. "He threw a tarnished silver locket. A locket with a dented clasp and a rose engraved on the front."
Elias’s composure fractured for the second time that night. "How do you know what it looked like?"
"Because," I said, a tear of pure, blinding rage cutting through the grease on my cheek. "That was my grandmother’s locket. And I buried it with her, six feet under the ground in Queens, ten years ago."
The cabin fell dead silent, save for the thumping of the rotors. I stared at the billionaire who claimed to be saving my life, and a horrifying realization washed over me. The mercenaries hadn't breached the auction house to kill the Architect's Heir. They had breached the building to stop Elias from taking me.
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"Who did you dig up, Elias?" I demanded, my voice shaking with a grief I thought I had buried a decade ago. "Who did you put in her grave?"
Elias looked down at his glass, swirling the liquor slowly. "I didn't dig her up, Leo. Because she never died."
