Chapter 2
“Close your eyes, Lily,” I whispered into her hair, my voice steady and cold as a winter glacier. “Count to ten in your head, sweetheart. Daddy’s got you.”
“Don’t let him hurt me... don't let him hurt Mamma,” the little girl sobbed, her small hands gripping the fabric of my coat with white-knuckled desperation.
“He can’t touch you. Not ever again.”
I set her gently down behind an overturned armchair, out of the line of fire, before slowly standing up to my full height. I turned around to face the hallway.
Standing in the doorway was a man in his late thirties, built like a brick wall with sloping shoulders and a stomach hanging over a stained undershirt. His knuckles were raw and split, dripping with fresh blood. In his right hand, he casually dangled a heavy, rusted iron pipe, dragging it along the drywall with an irritating, scraping screech that left a long gray scar across the paint. His eyes were bloodshot, glassy, and narrowed with violent, drunken arrogance.
“Who the hell are you? Some social worker playing hero?” the man sneered, taking a stumbling step into the bedroom, brandishing the pipe. “Get the hell out of my house before I cave your skull in, too. The bitch had it coming—she wouldn't shut her mouth about grocery money.”
I didn't reach for my gun. A gun was too clean, too fast for a piece of filth like this. Instead, I unbuttoned my wool coat, letting it slip off my shoulders and hit the floor, revealing the tailored charcoal suit beneath. I rolled up my left cuff slowly, exposing a forearm scarred from old blade wounds, and took three deliberate steps forward.
“My name is Vincent Moretti,” I said softly.
The man paused, his drunken smirk faltering for a fraction of a second as the weight of that name finally penetrated his pickled brain. The color drained slightly from his bloated face. “Moretti...? You’re... you’re the guy from the docks... the club owner...?”
“I’m the man who owns the ground you’re standing on,” I corrected, my voice dropping into a lethal, venomous whisper. “And you just made the biggest mistake of your miserable life.”
With a roar of blind rage, the man lunged forward, swinging the heavy iron pipe in a vicious arc aimed directly at my skull.
It was slow. Predictably, agonizingly slow.
I ducked beneath the swinging arc with effortless ease, stepping inside his guard, and drove the heel of my palm upward with bone-crushing force into the underside of his nose. Cartilage shattered like dry twigs, and a geyser of blood erupted across his face as he staggered backward with a gurgling shriek.
Before he could recover his balance, I grabbed him by the throat, hoisting his massive frame off the floor with one hand and slamming him spine-first against the hallway wall with enough force to crack the lath and plaster. The iron pipe clattered uselessly onto the wooden floorboards.
“You coward,” I hissed, pressing my forearm against his windpipe until his face turned a deep, mottled purple and his eyes bulged in absolute terror. “You beat a woman to death in front of her child. You thought nobody was watching. You thought you were a king in your own little castle.”
“Pl-please... spare me... I’ll leave town... I swear to God!” the man choked out, clawing frantically at my sleeve, his legs kicking uselessly in the air.
“There is no town left for you,” I whispered, staring into his panicked eyes with absolute, unyielding contempt.
At that exact moment, heavy footsteps echoed from the front porch, and Nico DeLuca rushed into the house, weapon drawn, followed by two armed enforcers. Nico stopped dead in his tracks, taking in the scene: the mother on the floor, the terrified little girl behind the armchair, and me holding a broken domestic abuser dangling by his neck.
Nico took one look at the man’s face and lowered his weapon, his expression turning cold and professional. “Clean up crew?”
“No,” I said, dropping the whimpering piece of trash onto the floor like a sack of garbage. He collapsed into a pathetic, wheezing heap, clutching his broken nose and sobbing for mercy. “Strap him into the trunk of the Escalade. Take him down to the meat-packing facility on the South Side. Secure a private interrogation room. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes.”
“And the woman?” Nico asked quietly, glancing toward the bedroom floor.
“Call Dr. Vance. Have him bring a private ambulance to the back alley. Quietly. No police reports, no public records. Handle her with the dignity she deserved in life.” I turned my gaze back toward the corner where little Lily sat peering out from behind the armchair, her tear-stained face looking up at me with absolute, terrified awe.
I knelt down again, ignoring the blood on the floor, and opened my arms. Lily didn't hesitate this time; she threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around my neck as I lifted her gently off her feet, standing up with her securely held against my chest.
May you like
“You’re coming with me, Lily,” I told her softly, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. “You’re never going to be scared again. I promise you that.”
As we walked out of the green house into the cold Chicago night, with Nico trailing behind us to manage the cleanup, the nightmare of the past was finally buried under the weight of an unshakeable, terrifying new dawn.
