Chapter 2 - The Inside Man
Declan stared at Gemma as the weight of her terrifying words settled into the quiet room.
Marcus had been with the Morrow family for over a decade.
He was the man Declan trusted with the lives of everyone in his inner circle.
For seventeen months, Gemma Croft had occupied a position no one had ever occupied in Declan’s life.
She had entered it completely by accident.
The first time he met her, she had been a waitress carrying four glasses of expensive bourbon.
She had opened the wrong door at the Whitmore Hotel.
Inside, Declan was meeting several business partners about matters a waitress was never supposed to hear.
One of Declan’s men had reached for a weapon inside his coat.
Gemma had noticed the deadly threat immediately.
She had placed the tray carefully on the nearest table.
Then she had looked directly at Declan and joked about the catering.
Declan had asked her if she knew how much trouble she was in.
Gemma had boldly replied that pretending she heard nothing would insult both of them.
That fearless honesty was exactly why Declan had hired her as his personal fixer the very next day.
Now, that same fearless woman was bleeding on his leather sofa.
Declan pulled his encrypted backup radio from his desk drawer.
He keyed the microphone and ordered a full tactical lockdown of the entire building.
He explicitly commanded his men to find Marcus and bring him to the penthouse alive.
A sharp blast of static echoed from the radio speaker.
The lights in the sprawling penthouse suddenly flickered and died.
The emergency red backup bulbs hummed to life along the ceiling.
Gemma gripped the edge of the sofa in the crimson darkness.
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The electronic lock on the main penthouse door beeped twice.
Someone on the outside was successfully overriding Declan’s personal security codes.
