The Hunt Begins

POV: Scarlett

The coffee mug slipped from my hands and crashed to the floor.

Hot liquid splashed across my bare feet, but I barely felt the burn. My eyes stayed locked on the black car parked across the street from my apartment building. The same car that had been there for three hours.

Three men sat inside. They wore dark suits and sunglasses even though the sun had set an hour ago.

My phone buzzed on the kitchen counter. Unknown number.

"Don't answer it," I whispered to myself. But my hand reached for it anyway.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Scarlett Justice."

Ice filled my veins. Nobody had called me by that name in five years. I was Sarah Miller now. Sarah Miller who studied English at Chicago University. Sarah Miller who worked at a small bookstore and lived alone in a tiny apartment.

Sarah Miller was safe.

Scarlett Justice was supposed to be dead.

"I think you have the wrong number," I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

The man laughed. It sounded like broken glass. "We both know that's not true. Your daddy has been looking for you for a long time."

My father. FBI Director Marcus Justice. The man who had taught me to shoot when I was eight and how to disappear when I was twelve. The same man who had hidden me away from his dangerous world with fake names and false papers.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"You, little girl. Dead or alive doesn't matter much to us."

The line went dead.

My hands shook as I dropped the phone. Outside, car doors slammed. The three men were getting out, walking toward my building like they owned the place.

I ran to my bedroom and pulled out the go-bag from under my bed. Dad had made me pack it when I turned eighteen. "Just in case," he had said. "Just in case my enemies find you."

Inside the bag: fake ID cards, cash, a gun, and enough supplies to disappear for weeks.

Heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway outside my door. Someone was picking the lock.

Think, Scarlett. Think like Dad taught you.

The fire escape. Third floor window in the bedroom led straight down to the alley.

I grabbed the bag and my jacket, then tiptoed to the bedroom window. My fingers fumbled with the old latch. Come on, come on.

Click.

The front door burst open behind me.

"She's here!" a deep voice shouted.

I threw the window open and climbed onto the metal fire escape. The cold Chicago wind cut through my thin shirt, but I didn't stop. Down the ladder, one step at a time. Don't look back. Don't think about how high up you are.

"There! She's going down the fire escape!"

Gunshots exploded above me. Bullets sparked off the metal railings next to my head. I dropped the last few feet to the alley and landed hard on my knees.

Pain shot through my legs, but I forced myself to run.

The alley led to a busy street filled with late-night traffic. I pushed through crowds of people leaving restaurants and bars. Nobody looked at me. Nobody cared about one more college girl hurrying home.

But I could hear them behind me. Heavy boots on concrete. Angry voices getting closer.

My phone buzzed again. Different number this time.

"Scarlett, it's Detective Martinez. Your father sent me. Where are you?"

Ray Martinez. One of Dad's most trusted officers. He had been to our house for dinner a hundred times when I was little.

"They found me," I gasped into the phone, still running. "Three men. They're shooting at me."

"I'm tracking your phone. Keep moving. I'm five minutes away."

Five minutes might as well be five hours.

I ducked into a 24-hour diner and slid into a booth in the back corner. The waitress looked annoyed but brought me coffee without asking. My hands wrapped around the warm cup, trying to stop the shaking.

Through the window, I watched the street. Looking for black suits. Looking for guns. Looking for death walking toward me in expensive shoes.

A family sat in the booth next to mine. Mom, dad, two little kids sharing a piece of pie. They looked so normal. So safe. The dad made funny faces at his daughter, and she giggled.

I used to have that. Before Dad's job took over our lives. Before I learned that loving someone in law enforcement meant living with targets on your back.

The diner door chimed.

Three men in black suits walked in.

My blood turned to ice water.

The lead man had cold blue eyes and a scar across his left cheek. He looked around the diner slowly, like a wolf hunting sheep.

His eyes found mine.

He smiled.

I was already moving, sliding out of the booth and heading for the back exit. But when I pushed through the kitchen doors, two more men were waiting in the alley.

Trapped.

The scarred man walked through the kitchen like he owned it. The cook and dishwasher pressed against the walls, too scared to move.

"Scarlett Justice," he said. "You're a hard girl to find."

"My name is Sarah Miller," I lied.

He pulled out a gun. "Your daddy killed my brother two years ago. FBI raid in Detroit. Now I get to return the favor."

"I had nothing to do with that."

"But you're his weakness," the man said. "His only weakness. And when you're dead, he'll know what it feels like to lose family."

The gun pointed at my chest.

I closed my eyes and thought about my father. How he would blame himself. How this would destroy him.

That's when the shooting started.

But the bullets weren't aimed at me.

The scarred man spun around as his friends dropped to the ground. Someone was firing from the alley entrance. Fast, accurate shots that hit their targets every time.

A motorcycle roared into the narrow space between buildings. The rider wore all black and moved like a shadow made of violence.

More gunshots. The scarred man fell backward, clutching his shoulder.

A gloved hand reached toward me. "Get on. Now."

I didn't think. I grabbed the stranger's hand and swung my leg over the bike.

"Hold tight," a deep voice said.

We shot out of the alley and into traffic. Behind us, sirens wailed. Police cars raced past us going the other direction.

The bike wove between cars and trucks like we were dancing with death. My arms wrapped around the rider's waist, holding on as Chicago blurred past us in streaks of light.

Who was this person? Why had he saved me? And where was he taking me?

We turned into an empty warehouse district where broken streetlights left everything in shadows. The bike finally stopped behind a building that looked ready to fall down.

The rider got off first and pulled off his helmet.

Dark hair. Gray eyes that seemed to see everything. A face that was handsome and dangerous at the same time.

He looked at me like he was trying to solve a puzzle.

"Who are you?" he asked.

I opened my mouth to lie again. To say I was Sarah Miller, nobody important.

But something in his eyes stopped me.

"Someone who needs to disappear," I said instead.

He stared at me for a long moment. Then he nodded.

"Then you came to the right place," he said. "In my world, people disappear all the time."

My world.

What kind of world was that? And what kind of man lived in it?

As I followed him into the dark warehouse, one question burned in my mind: Had I just escaped from one kind of danger only to walk straight into another?