Chapter 354: Help! Help!

Outside the mansion, the Dirty Saints hit their first real problem.

The gate was too high.

They had pushed against it, tested the lock, and looked for a weak point along the wall, but the metal and the height made a clean climb from the ground almost impossible. From the street they could still see the upper lines of the house, the quiet windows, the expensive stillness of a place that looked empty from far away. Standing out here too long was already a risk. A van and men in masks on a clean residential road would not stay invisible forever.

Their boss made the decision fast.

"Call the bus back."

The vehicle returned and parked tight against the gate. One by one the men climbed onto the roof, boots scraping metal, bodies balancing as they reached for the top of the wall. It was ugly work. They struggled, pulled, and forced themselves over in rough stages. When they dropped down on the other side, the landing hit hard enough to draw short curses and sharp breaths. Pain shot up through ankles and knees, but none of them stayed down. Six of them made it into the grounds.

They moved toward the entrance in a low, careful line.

The front door was locked.

No one wasted time trying to talk it open. One of them found a side window, smashed it hard, and cleared enough glass for them to climb through. They entered the main parlor one after another, boots grinding over broken pieces as they straightened up inside.

The room stopped them for a second.

It was wide and polished, filled with furniture that looked expensive enough to belong in a magazine. Clean lines. Soft light. The kind of house that made their usual jobs feel smaller by comparison. For a brief moment the beauty of the place pulled at their attention, almost enough to slow the work.

Then the smell hit them.

Burning food. Sharp. Wrong. Coming from deeper inside the house.

All six turned toward it at once.

They followed the smoke into the kitchen. When they pushed the door open, blue-gray haze filled the air. No one was there. Pots sat on the stove. The gas was still on. The dinner that had been cooking had already gone past saving and was only adding more smoke to the room.

One of them muttered under his breath and reached for the knobs.

They turned the gas off.

Not out of kindness. Out of practical sense. A house filling with smoke would draw attention from outside faster than a quiet search. Once the burners were dead, the boss looked around the empty kitchen and made the next call.

"Somebody was here. Check every room. She didn’t vanish into the air."

They split without argument.

Three stayed on the ground floor.

Three went upstairs.

Doors began opening through the house. Closets. Bathrooms. Guest rooms. Each space was checked properly, not just glanced at. Drawers pulled. Curtains moved. Corners cleared. The mansion that had looked beautiful from the parlor now became a map of places someone could hide.

Upstairs, the search moved closer to the room where Rechelle lay under the bed.

She heard them long before her door moved. Footsteps in the hallway, heavy and unhurried Under the bed the dark felt smaller with every sound. Dust clung to her arms. The phone pressed hard against her chest. She locked every muscle against the need to breathe too loudly, against the urge to shift, against the panic that kept trying to rise into her throat.

Then her door was yanked open.

The handle struck the wall. Light from the hallway spilled across the floorboards in a sudden clean line.

From under the bed she saw the boots first ~ dark, scuffed, stopping just inside the room. The man stood still for a second. Listening. The quiet stretched. Then he started to search.

The wardrobe banged open. Hangers clattered against each other. He shoved clothes aside, checked behind them, moved on. The bathroom door swung next. He looked in, stepped closer, came back out. He tore through the rest of the room with rough hands. Covers lifted and dropped. Corners kicked. A chair scraped. Nothing was left neat. To him the place still looked empty.

He turned toward the door again.

That was when her nose betrayed her.

Dust and fear had left it running. She tried to hold it. Tried to stay frozen. The pressure built until it escaped anyway.

The sniff was small. Wet. Human.

The boots stopped.

Silence filled the room so completely it hurt.

"Come out," the man said, low and almost calm. "I’m not going to harm you."

He moved slower now, head angled, tracking the sound. Each step was careful. Rechelle pressed flatter against the floorboards, eyes wide in the dark, both hands locked around the phone as if the plastic could still protect her. Her lungs burned from the effort of staying quiet. Under the bed there was nowhere left to go.

On the other end of the line, Lucas heard the man’s voice and the sudden danger under it. He muted his phone at once. No sound from his side. No breath too close to the speaker. In the taxi his jaw was locked tight enough to ache. They were already close to the mansion. Close enough that every second should have mattered.

Under the bed, the boots stopped at the edge.

The man bent down.

For a fraction of a second there was only the shape of his head against the hallway light. Then he saw her ~ curled tight, phone in both hands, eyes locked on him in pure fear.

His hand shot in and yanked her out hard.

Rechelle’s scream ripped through the room.

"Help! Help!"

She kicked, twisted, fought his grip as he dragged her into the open. Her shoulder hit the floor. The phone nearly flew from her fingers. The locked door, the careful silence, the dark space under the bed ~ all of it collapsed at once into noise and panic. She kept screaming, voice breaking, body still struggling even as his hold tightened.

In the taxi, her cry tore through the open line.

Lucas’s head snapped up.

"Speed up," he told the driver, voice sharp enough to cut. "We’re close. Go."

The old man did not argue. The engine pulled hard. The taxi surged toward the mansion while Rechelle’s screams kept coming through the phone, raw and desperate, and the Dirty Saints finally had their hands on the woman they had come to take.