Chapter 5 - The Osprey Inn
The Osprey Inn was a run-down, two-story wooden motel sitting on a rocky bluff overlooking the freezing Atlantic Ocean near Cape Elizabeth, Maine. Wind howled through the bare pine trees, whipping salt spray and heavy snow against the cracked glass windows of the guest rooms.
Inside Room 114, Isabelle sat on the edge of a narrow bed, wrapped in a thick wool blanket. A small space heater hummed loudly in the corner, throwing a faint orange glow across her pale face. On the small nightstand beside her lay a prescription bottle of prenatal vitamins and a cup of lukewarm tea.
She rested her hand gently against her lower abdomen. At ten weeks, there was no visible bump yet, but inside her, a tiny life was growing—a child that belonged to the most dangerous man in New England, a man who had cast her out like garbage into a storm.
Tears, hot and silent, slipped down her cheeks. She hadn't cried when Damian confronted her with the forged folder. She hadn't cried when she walked past his armed guards into the freezing night. She had held her head high because she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her break under his cruel misjudgment. But now, alone in a cheap motel room with the sound of the ocean crashing against the rocks below, the absolute loneliness of her existence crushed down upon her.
Suddenly, a faint, unnatural sound cut through the howling wind outside her window—the crunch of heavy boots on snow, followed by the soft metallic click of a door handle being tested from the exterior corridor.
Isabelle froze, her instincts instantly on high alert. Growing up near the edges of the syndicate world, she knew what danger sounded like. She quietly stood up, grabbing her heavy winter coat and slipping her purse over her shoulder.
A shadow passed across the frosted window pane. Through the thin curtain, she saw the silhouette of a tall man holding a suppressed weapon fitted with a long barrel.
It wasn't Damian. Damian never did his own dirty work when sending killers—or did he? Had he sent someone to make sure she never spoke to the authorities about the Hale family secrets?
Panic seized her heart. She backed away toward the small bathroom at the rear of the room, her hand pressed over her mouth to stifle her terrified breathing.
A sudden, violent kick shattered the wooden lock of the front door. The door burst inward, spraying wood splinters across the carpet. Vance, Grant’s cold-eyed enforcement contractor, stepped into the room, raising his silenced pistol toward the bed.
“Clara Vance,” Vance called out in a low, gravelly voice, scanning the empty room. “Don't make this difficult, lady. Grant wants this clean and simple.”
Isabelle locked the bathroom door, backing up toward the small frosted window that opened onto the rear fire escape overlooking the rocky beach below. Her hands shook frantically as she struggled with the rusted latch on the window frame.
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“He sent you to kill me,” she whispered to herself, tears blinding her eyes as she assumed Damian had ordered her execution. “He really sent someone to kill us...”
Outside the front door, heavy footsteps suddenly thundered down the exterior boardwalk. A violent roar echoed through the storm, followed by the terrifying sound of glass shattering and human bodies slamming into walls.
