Chapter 2
“Who were you talking to, you ungrateful little tramp?” my husband snarled, lunging forward with unnatural speed. Before I could even shift my weight away, his massive hand clamped down around my uninjured right wrist, hauling me roughly to my feet as if I weighed nothing. A fresh wave of agony shot up my shattered left arm, causing me to bite down so hard on my lower lip that I tasted copper. He dragged me out of the bathroom, throwing me hard against the living room wall. My head struck the plaster with a dull thud, and stars burst across my vision.
“You think you can call people behind my back? You think someone is coming to rescue you from my house?” he laughed hysterically, pacing back and forth across the cheap carpet, his fists clenched. He picked up an empty beer bottle from the coffee table and smashed it against the brick fireplace, sending shards flying everywhere. “There is no rescue, Lena! You belong to me! You are nothing without me!”
I slumped against the baseboard, gasping for air, keeping my right hand shielded behind my back. Glancing down at the illuminated screen of my phone through blurred, tear-filled eyes, I saw the call timer ticking relentlessly. 03:45. Three minutes and forty-five seconds had passed since Vincent Moretti had told me to stay alive for eight minutes. I only needed to survive four more minutes. Four minutes against a raging, psychotic monster who had already broken my body and was now looking around the room for something heavier to finish the job.
“You’ve been whispering behind my back for months,” my husband hissed, stepping closer and raising his heavy boot. “Maybe I should break your other arm so you finally learn your place.”
Fear paralyzed my vocal cords. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the impact, praying to whatever gods were listening to make the clock spin faster. Four minutes left.
Suddenly, the ambient noise of the city outside our apartment window shifted. It wasn't the usual distant wail of police sirens or the hum of late-night traffic. It was a heavy, coordinated rumble of high-performance engines idling right outside our building. Three sleek, matte-black Cadillac Escalades pulled up in tight, military-style formation directly in front of our apartment complex, completely blocking the narrow street. The tires crunched sharply against the asphalt. Within seconds, all twelve vehicle doors opened simultaneously.
Out stepped twelve men dressed in identical, bespoke black three-piece suits, heavy leather gloves, and dark sunglasses despite the pitch-black night. They moved with terrifying, synchronized precision, ignoring the startled shouts of neighbors looking out their windows. They didn't look like street thugs; they looked like an elite military death squad executing a classified black-ops extraction.
At the center of the formation strode Vincent Moretti. He was a tall, imposing man in his late forties with sharp, chiseled features, silver-streaked dark hair combed back with meticulous perfection, and eyes cold and dead as winter ice. He didn't run. He walked with a slow, predatory confidence that commanded absolute terror. He wore a heavy wool overcoat that billowed slightly in the cold autumn wind. As he reached the front entrance of our apartment building, the heavy glass door didn't even slow him down—one of his massive enforcers simply shouldered the deadbolt lock, sending the reinforced glass shattering inward.
Inside our apartment, my husband paused, his boot frozen mid-air as a strange, heavy vibration echoed through the floorboards of the building. Heavy, synchronized footsteps began thundering up the concrete stairwell like rolling thunder.
“What the hell is that?” my husband muttered, turning his head toward the front door, his drunken bravado suddenly faltering as a cold knot of dread formed in his stomach. “Is that... the cops?”
I opened my eyes, a fierce, triumphant glimmer of hope piercing through my pain. Timer: 06:50. Six minutes and fifty seconds.
“No,” I whispered, my voice trembling with vindication. “That’s not the cops.”
Before my husband could process my words, the front door of our apartment—a solid oak slab fitted with a steel security bar—exploded into splinters as a massive kick from the outside blew it completely off its heavy iron hinges. The door crashed flat onto the living room floor with a deafening bang.
Smoke curled slightly from the hallway as four armed men in black suits poured into the room instantly, their movements lightning-fast and surgically clean. They didn't yell warnings or wave flashlights; their silenced automatic pistols were raised and locked onto targets with chilling efficiency. My husband stumbled backward in absolute horror, his hands flying up in instinctive self-defense as he tripped over the coffee table and crashed hard onto the floor.
And then, stepping calmly through the splintered doorway amidst the settling dust, came Vincent Moretti.
He pulled a black leather glove off his right hand, sliding it slowly into his coat pocket. His dark, piercing gaze swept the room in a single fraction of a second, cataloging every detail: the overturned furniture, the shattered beer bottle, my bruised face, and my grotesquely twisted, broken arm hanging helplessly at my side.
When Vincent’s eyes locked onto my husband shaking in terror on the floor, the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. It was the look of a executioner surveying a worm.
Vincent lifted his phone to his ear, his deep, calm voice vibrating through the speaker I still held tightly in my hand. “Lena.”
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“I'm here,” I choked out, tears breaking free.
“Time's up,” Vincent said softly, lowering his phone. “You're safe now.”
