Chapter 3 – Three Knocks

Morning arrived without warmth.

Without peace.

Without happiness.

A gray sky hung over Blackridge City as rain clung stubbornly to rooftops and windowpanes. The streets below slowly came alive beneath a curtain of mist—cars splashing through puddles, distant sirens echoing between concrete towers, pedestrians hurrying beneath umbrellas.

The city was waking.

Apartment 4B wasn't.

It remained wrapped in a suffocating silence.

One that felt less like calm... and more like the quiet before something catastrophic.

Seraphine Valmont hadn't slept. Not for a single minute.

She stood beside the kitchen window, fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee that had long since gone cold. Her eyes remained fixed on the rain outside, but she wasn't seeing any of it.

Her mind replayed the same scene over.....and over...

...and over again.

The alley.

The blood.

The gunshots.

The stranger collapsing into her arms.

How had one impulsive act of compassion dismantled the quiet life she'd spent years carefully rebuilding?

She was a nurse.

Helping people wasn't extraordinary.

It was instinct.

Yet somehow...

Saving one wounded man had turned her into prey.

Behind her, the man she had saved sat calmly at the dining table she'd transformed into a makeshift operating station during the night.

Fresh white bandages disappeared beneath a clean black shirt borrowed from her late father's closet.

The shirt fit him surprisingly well despite his broader shoulders.

His posture remained perfectly straight.

His breathing steady.

His expression unreadable.

If not for the faint traces of dried blood around his collar, no one would believe he'd nearly bled to death only hours earlier.

Sera glanced at him.

He was cleaning a compact pistol she'd discovered hidden inside his jacket while removing it the previous night.

The weapon rested naturally in his hands.

Like it belonged there.

Like violence belonged to him.

Her stomach twisted.

Who exactly had she rescued?

The vibration of a phone interrupted the silence.

The man glanced at the screen.

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly before he slipped it back into his pocket.

"They're searching for us now."

Sera slowly turned.

"Us?"

His gaze met hers. "Since they know you helped me... you're part of their hunt."

A chill crawled down her spine.

"You keep saying 'they.'"

"They're professionals."

"Who are they?"

"The kind of people you never want to meet twice."

She folded her arms.

"That isn't an answer."

"It's the only safe one."

Frustration ignited inside her. "You expect me to accept that armed men chased you across the city... that someone is apparently hunting me... and all you can tell me is they're professionals?"

He leaned back slightly.

His expression never changed.

"You ask too many questions."

"And you answer too few."

"There are things better left unknown."

She laughed bitterly. "You realize how ridiculous you sound?"

"For your sake..." His voice remained calm. "...I hope you never stop thinking that."

For the first time... The corner of his lips curved upward.

Not enough to become a smile.

Just enough to suggest he remembered what smiling once felt like.

"You argue with everyone who saves their life?"

"I don't usually rescue strangers."

"You should."

"I've officially decided you're impossible."

"And yet..." He tilted his head. "...you haven't asked me to leave."

The words struck deeper than she expected.

She opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

Because he was right.

She should've called the police.

She should've reported everything.

She should've forced him out before sunrise.

Instead...

She had stitched his wounds.

Given him clean clothes.

Allowed him to rest inside the only place she had ever truly considered home.

Why?

She didn't know anymore.

Maybe because beneath all his coldness...

She had caught glimpses of something painfully human.

Or maybe...

She simply couldn't abandon someone bleeding to death.

That was who she was.

Even if it destroyed her.

By noon the rain had grown heavier. The man stood.

"I'm leaving."

Sera blinked. "You can't even walk properly."

"I've had worse."

"You say that about everything."

"Usually because it's true."

She crossed her arms. "The stitches could reopen."

"They'll heal."

"If you tear them again, I won't be sewing you up a second time."

"I believe you."

"You don't sound convinced."

"I'm not." Despite herself... She almost smiled.

Almost.

He reached for the apartment door.

Then— He froze.

Every muscle in his body became rigid.

Like a predator sensing another predator nearby.

His eyes sharpened.

His breathing slowed.

Sera noticed immediately.

"What?"

He didn't answer.

Instead...

He stepped toward the peephole.

Carefully.

Silently.

He looked outside.

Then immediately stepped backward.

"Don't move."

Something inside her stomach tightened.

"What is it?"

"No one opens that door."

A knock echoed through the apartment.

Three slow taps. Knock. Knock. Knock.

Silence.

Then...

Three more.

"Sera?"

A familiar elderly voice drifted through the hallway.

"It's Mrs. Alvarez from downstairs." Sera frowned.

"My neighbor." She instinctively reached for the lock.

Before her fingers touched it— He caught her wrist.

His grip was firm.

Controlled.

Not painful.

"No."

"She's harmless."

"You don't know that."

"I've known her for five years."

He never looked away from the entrance.

"They know where you live."

"You don't know that."

"I know enough."

Another knock.

"Sera?"

Something felt... Wrong.

Mrs. Alvarez never visited without calling first.

Never.

And she always complained about her knees before climbing the stairs.

Today... Nothing.

No sighing.

No coughing.

No jingling of the bracelets she always wore.

Just silence.

Lucien slowly reached beside the doorway.

His hand wrapped around the heavy ceramic flowerpot sitting on a wooden stand.

He lifted it effortlessly.

Then gestured toward the hallway.

"Stay behind me."

"I don't need—"

The apartment door exploded inward.

The deafening blast shook the entire apartment.

Wood splintered across the floor like shrapnel.

The hinges tore free.

Smoke filled the entrance.

A masked man burst through the destroyed doorway with an assault pistol already raised.

Time slowed.

He reacted first.

He shoved Sera behind the hallway wall.

The first gunshot ripped across the living room.

Glass shattered.

Picture frames exploded.

Books flew from the shelves.

The television screen burst into thousands of glittering fragments.

The masked attacker adjusted his aim.

He moved.

The ceramic flowerpot spun through the air with frightening precision.

CRACK!

It smashed directly into the attacker's face.

Bone crunched.

The man stumbled backward, dropping to one knee.

He was already on him.

Despite the blood loss....

Despite barely being able to stand an hour earlier...

He moved with terrifying speed.

One devastating punch.

An elbow beneath the jaw.

A knee to the ribs.

The pistol clattered across the hardwood floor.

The attacker recovered astonishingly fast.

Instead of reaching for the weapon... He drew a combat knife.

The blade flashed beneath the apartment lights.

Sera's heart nearly stopped.

"Watch out!"

He ignored her completely.

The knife slashed.

He caught the attacker's wrist inches from his throat.

Muscles strained.

Veins stood out beneath his forearm.

With brutal efficiency he twisted the wrist until something snapped.

The man screamed.

He redirected the blade into the wooden doorframe before slamming his shoulder into the attacker's chest.

Both attacker crashed into the hallway wall.

The impact rattled framed photographs.

One of them— A picture of Sera with her late parents

Fell.

The frame shattered.

For a split second...

Her eyes lingered on it.

Then another gunshot echoed.

Not inside.

Outside.

The gray-eyed man's head snapped toward the broken windows.

His expression changed.

For the first time...

She saw genuine alarm.

"Sera!"

Without hesitation he lunged toward her.

The second sniper's bullet ripped through the space where she'd been standing less than a heartbeat earlier.

Concrete exploded.

Chunks of plaster showered the apartment.

He tackled her to the floor.

More bullets followed. CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

The windows disintegrated completely.

Cold rain rushed inside.

Curtains danced violently in the wind.

Glass rained over them.

The apartment transformed into a battlefield.

"Stay down!" He barked.

Sera nodded, trembling.

Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.

She'd treated gunshot victims before.

She'd comforted grieving families.

She'd watched people die.

But she'd never been hunted.

Never been someone's target.

He crawled toward the fallen pistol.

Another shot struck the hardwood inches from his hand.

He rolled behind the overturned couch.

Professional.

Calculated.

The shooters weren't trying to scare them.

They were systematically cutting off every escape route.

The wounded attacker suddenly lunged from behind.

Knife raised.

He didn't even look.

He caught the attacker's wrist blindly.

Twisted.

The blade flew across the room.

Then— CRACK.

A single punch.

The attacker's body collapsed motionless.

Silence.

Only rain.

Only broken glass.

Only both of them struggling to breathe.

Then...

A faint sound. Tick... Tick... Tick...

His eyes widened.

He looked toward the dead attacker.

Clipped beneath the man's tactical vest...

A blinking red light.

Three seconds.

His voice turned deadly serious.

"Move!"

"What—" "NOW!"

He grabbed Sera's hand.

The explosion erupted behind them.

The apartment shook violently.

Fire burst through the hallway.

The blast hurled both of them across the living room.

The ceiling cracked.

Smoke poured through the shattered walls.

Flames devoured the entrance.

The attack hadn't been an assassination.

It had been an execution.

No survivors.

No witnesses.

The gray-eyed man forced himself up despite blood soaking through his shirt once again.

His stitches had completely torn open.

Fresh crimson spread rapidly across the borrowed black fabric.

Sera rushed to him.

"You're bleeding!"

"I know."

"You'll collapse!"

"Not before they do."

She stared.

How could someone remain so calm?

Another sound interrupted them.

Heavy footsteps.

Not one.

Several.

Boots.

Climbing the staircase outside.

Methodical.

Disciplined.

More gunmen.

He checked the pistol.

Only five bullets remained.

Five.

Against an unknown number.

He looked toward the fire swallowing the front entrance.

Then toward the shattered windows overlooking four stories of empty air.

No exits.

No backup.

Nowhere to run.

For the first time since she'd met him...

He whispered something barely audible.

"...They found me faster than expected."

Sera looked at him.

"What do we do?"

The gray-eyed man's gaze shifted toward the apartment across the alley.

Too far to jump.

Too close to ignore.

Then...

A metallic click echoed from somewhere above them.

Both instinctively looked toward the ceiling.

Tiny flakes of plaster drifted down.

Another click.

Followed by the unmistakable sound of steel dragging across concrete.

His expression hardened.

"No..."

"What?"

He slowly backed away.

His voice became little more than a whisper.

"They're not coming through the door."

The ceiling above them groaned.

A spiderweb of cracks spread across the plaster.

Dust rained down.

Then—

A sharp metallic blade pierced straight through the ceiling...

...followed by another....and another.

Someone wasn't attacking from the hallway anymore.

They were cutting their way in from the apartment above.

He raised his pistol.

The first section of the ceiling collapsed.

A black-clad figure dropped through the opening—

—and before either of them could react, the stranger stormed in, looked directly at him...

...and smiled.

Before the stranger could utter a single word. Sirens echoed from a distance. Then....

They sprinted out to scape from the police.

Unfortunately...

So did the questions.

Sera answered as honestly as she could.

She had been attacked.

She didn't know why.

She had never seen the assailants before.

She carefully omitted one detail.

The gray-eyed man.

By the time officers finished searching the apartment...

He had disappeared.