CHAPTER 2: FOOTSTEPS IN THE SNOW
CHAPTER 2: FOOTSTEPS IN THE SNOW
The footsteps stopped just outside the cabin.
Not rushed.
Not hesitant.
As if whoever stood there already knew exactly what they were looking for.
Sarah’s heart hammered so violently she was sure it could be heard through the walls. She slowly reached for the lantern’s handle and twisted the wick down until the flame shrank to a faint glow, barely breathing.
Dominic’s fingers tightened around her wrist.
“Don’t move,” he mouthed.
The wind screamed across the roof, rattling the loose tin like bones. Snow slid down the window in thick, uneven sheets, distorting the shadow outside—but it was unmistakably human.
A man.
Then another.
Two silhouettes passed the window, one pausing long enough for Sarah to catch the glint of metal at his side.
A gun.
She swallowed hard.
They found us.
Her mind raced, flipping through every possible option and finding none that ended well. The cabin had one door. Two windows. No back exit. No cellar. No weapon beyond a rusted hatchet embedded in a stump outside.
The doorknob rattled.
Once.
Twice.
The sound echoed like a gunshot in the small space.
Sarah pressed her hand over her mouth, her breath shallow and silent. Dominic shifted, pain flashing across his face as he forced himself still.
“Locked,” a voice muttered outside. Low. Male. Calm.
“Check the perimeter,” another replied.
Boots crunched away from the door.
Sarah did not relax.
Neither did Dominic.
Minutes stretched into eternity. The men circled the cabin slowly, methodically, testing windows, peering through frost-clouded glass. One of them knocked on the wall—twice—with his knuckles, listening.
Sarah’s legs trembled.
She crouched beside Dominic, leaning close enough to whisper without sound.
“If they come in—”
“They won’t,” Dominic whispered back, eyes never leaving the door. “Not yet.”
“Not yet?” Her eyes widened.
“They’re hunting,” he said. “Not sweeping.”
A pause.
Then a sharp voice cut through the storm.
“Tracks disappear here.”
Sarah’s stomach dropped.
“They know,” she breathed.
Dominic closed his eyes for a brief second, then reopened them, something cold and calculating settling into his gaze.
“Listen to me carefully,” he said. “If they breach the cabin, you go out the back window.”
“There is no back window.”
“Then you make one.”
She stared at him. “I’m not leaving you.”
“You will,” he said quietly. “Because if they take me alive, they’ll torture you first to make me watch.”
Her breath caught.
The truth in his voice was more terrifying than any threat.
Outside, a flashlight beam swept across the window, flooding the cabin with harsh white light for a split second.
Sarah ducked instinctively.
The beam moved on.
Then—footsteps retreating.
She waited.
Counted heartbeats.
Ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Finally, the sound faded into the storm.
Only when the silence returned did Sarah realize she’d been holding her breath.
She collapsed against the wall, lungs burning.
“They left,” she whispered.
“For now,” Dominic replied.
THE AFTERMATH
Morning crept in slowly, gray and exhausted, as if the sun itself had been battered by the storm.
The blizzard had buried the world overnight. Snowdrifts swallowed the trees, erased paths, softened everything into a deceptive calm.
Sarah woke with her neck stiff and her limbs numb. She’d slept sitting upright, her body curled protectively toward Dominic like a shield.
He was awake.
Sitting up slightly, one arm braced against the wall, face pale but alert.
“You shouldn’t be moving,” she said sharply, scrambling to her feet.
“I shouldn’t be alive,” he replied. “But here we are.”
She checked his wound immediately. The bleeding had slowed, the makeshift packing holding. His fever had broken slightly—still hot, but no longer burning.
“Lucky,” she muttered.
Dominic watched her quietly as she worked.
“You didn’t leave,” he said.
“I said I wouldn’t.”
He studied her like a puzzle he hadn’t known existed.
“You could have died,” he said. “For someone you didn’t know.”
Sarah tied the bandage with practiced hands. “I knew enough.”
She stood and stretched, wincing as every muscle protested.
“Can you stand?”
He tested his weight slowly. Grimaced. Then nodded.
“Barely.”
“That’s not good enough,” she said. “We need to move.”
His brow furrowed. “Where?”
“Somewhere warmer. Somewhere with supplies. Somewhere no one expects.”
She hesitated, then added, “There’s a town about fifteen miles east. Small. Nobody important.”
Dominic shook his head. “Too obvious.”
Sarah met his gaze. “I used to live there.”
That gave him pause.
“I know which clinics don’t ask questions,” she continued. “I know which houses are empty in winter. And I know how to disappear there.”
Silence stretched.
Finally, Dominic nodded.
“All right.”
THE PHONE THAT SHOULDN’T RING
They were packing what little they could carry when the cabin’s old landline phone rang.
The sound was so sudden Sarah nearly dropped the lantern.
She stared at the phone like it was a snake.
“That line hasn’t worked in years,” she whispered.
Dominic’s jaw tightened. “It does now.”
The phone rang again.
And again.
Sarah’s pulse thundered.
“Don’t answer it,” she said.
“They already know we’re alive,” Dominic replied. “This is confirmation.”
The ringing stopped.
Then started again.
Relentless.
Dominic reached for it.
Sarah grabbed his arm. “What if it’s them?”
“What if it’s not?” he countered. “What if it’s my father?”
She hesitated.
Slowly, Dominic picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
Static crackled.
Then a familiar voice cut through.
“Dominic.”
His face drained of color.
“Father.”
Sarah’s breath caught.
Carmine Rossi was alive.
“Where are you?” Carmine demanded. “My men lost your trail at the cabin.”
Sarah froze.
Dominic’s eyes flicked to her—sharp, warning.
“Your men?” he asked carefully. “Which ones?”
A pause.
Too long.
“…The loyal ones,” Carmine said.
Dominic closed his eyes.
“You already know,” he said quietly. “Lorenzo.”
The silence on the line was deafening.
“I trusted him,” Carmine finally said, voice cracking with something dangerously close to grief. “He controlled security. Access codes. Schedules.”
“And now?” Dominic asked.
“And now,” Carmine said, “I don’t know who’s left.”
Sarah felt the weight of those words settle over her like ice.
Dominic’s voice hardened. “You can’t send anyone.”
“I know.”
“Then I stay off-grid.”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“Who saved you?” Carmine asked.
Dominic looked at Sarah.
Really looked at her.
“A woman you’ve never noticed,” he said. “And the reason I’m alive.”
Carmine exhaled slowly.
“Then she is under my protection,” he said. “And my debt.”
Sarah’s stomach twisted.
Debts in the Rossi family were not small things.
The line went dead.
A LINE CROSSED
They left the cabin an hour later.
Sarah helped Dominic onto a snowmobile hidden behind the shed—an old one, barely functional, probably forgotten by the estate years ago.
As she climbed on behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist to steady him, something shifted between them.
This was no longer a rescue.
It was an alliance.
The engine roared to life, breaking the silence.
As they sped into the white expanse, Sarah looked back once at the cabin shrinking behind them.
She had gone into work a maid.
May you like
She was leaving something else entirely.
And somewhere deep in the storm, Lorenzo Rossi was realizing that the man he tried to kill—and the woman who saved him—were still alive.
