Chapter 6 - SHADOWS IN THE BAKERY
"Get down!" Clara screamed, grabbing Elena by the collar and dragging her behind the heavy industrial steel dough-kneader just as the front glass of the bakery shattered in a deafening spray of bullets.
Glass shards rained across the flour-dusted floor. The screech of shattering porcelain mugs and the thud of heavy lead slugs penetrating drywall echoed like thunderclaps. Clara’s instincts, honed by years of hard labor and protective maternal ferocity, kicked in immediately.
"The back alley door," Clara whispered fiercely, pointing toward the kitchen. "Go!"
Elena, trembling from years of psychological abuse and confinement, scrambled on her hands and knees. Clara grabbed a heavy iron cast skillet from the stove rack and a canister of commercial-grade baker's lye. As the first intruder stepped through the shattered doorway, his boots crunching on broken glass, Clara hurled the lye straight into his tactical goggles and facial mask, following through with a crushing blow from the iron skillet against his shoulder.
The man howled in agony, stumbling backward. Clara didn't hesitate; she sprinted into the back alley, pulling Elena into the labyrinth of dark service corridors connecting the commercial district. Rain poured over them, washing away the flour from Clara's apron as they slipped into a subway entrance just as the black SUV roared around the street corner.
Down in the rattling subway car, Elena wept uncontrollably. "They won't stop, Clara. The man behind Margaret is Victor Sterling—the state senator running for governor. He was the one who signed the sanitarium confinement orders."
Clara pulled out her cheap prepaid phone, her hands shaking but her resolve unyielding. There was only one man who had the legal firepower and the personal stake to blow this conspiracy wide open. She dialed Adam Hamilton’s private number.
When Adam answered on the second ring, his voice sounded broken and exhausted. "Clara? Is that you?"
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"Adam, listen to me very carefully," Clara said, her voice cutting through the rumbling train noise. "Your wife Elena is alive. She is sitting right next to me. And if you don't bring your private security to the Saint Jude Harbor warehouse in thirty minutes, Senator Sterling's hitmen will kill us all."
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