Chapter 7 - The Enforcer’s Wrath
The man in the leather jacket—one of Vincent Solozzo’s top enforcers, a ruthless brute known on the streets as Il Brutto—stopped dead in his tracks.
His dark, bloodshot eyes swept over my slender frame, noting the absence of a weapon, then flicked toward the pantry where the service lift pulleys were still swinging slowly in the air.
A cruel, knowing grin spread across his scarred face.
“Well, well,” Solozzo’s enforcer chuckled darkly, lowering his pistol slightly as he stepped forward. “The boss said Moretti had a pet living in his house. Didn't realize she was stupid enough to stay behind to play hero.”
I kept my back firmly against the kitchen counter, my heart hammering violently against my ribs, but my hands remained steady.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” I said, my voice ice-cold and steady, channeling a confidence I didn't entirely feel. “Dante is already on his way back. And when he gets here, there won't be enough left of your crew to fill an unmarked grave.”
The enforcer laughed aloud, stepping closer, closing the distance between us until I could smell the cheap whiskey and cigarette smoke on his breath.
“Moretti is thirty miles across town caught in a coordinated traffic snarl our guys engineered,” he sneered, raising the barrel of the gun right between my eyes. “By the time he reaches these gates, the kid is ours, and this house is burned to the ash—starting with you.”
He raised his free hand, reaching out to grab my hair, intending to shove me to the floor.
I didn't scream. I didn't cower.
Years of scraping by on the margins of Chicago, dealing with abusive debts and broken promises, had taught me how to endure. But more than that—I had a sanctuary now. I had people who valued my existence.
As his hand came forward, I grabbed the heavy, scalding-hot copper pot I had quietly pulled off the stove range while he was talking, and swung it with every ounce of fury in my body directly into his face.
CRASH.
A sickening crunch echoed through the kitchen as the heavy copper connected with his jaw. The enforcer shrieked, stumbling backward, dropping his pistol as blood spurted from his broken nose.
He lunged forward blindly with a furious roar, tackling me backward across the marble counter. Glass canisters smashed to the floor. Pain exploded across my ribs as we hit the tile, but I wrapped my legs around his waist, twisting and striking back with desperate, adrenaline-fueled survival instincts.
He raised a heavy fist to strike me across the face—
Bang.
A single, thunderous gunshot echoed through the kitchen from the hallway entrance.
The enforcer froze mid-swing. His eyes went wide and glassy. A dark red bloom blossomed instantly across the center of his leather jacket.
He collapsed sideways, crashing heavily onto the tile floor beside me, completely lifeless.
I scrambled backward, gasping for air, pressing my hands against my bleeding knuckles as I looked up toward the doorway.
Dante Moretti stood in the frame.
His suit jacket was gone. His white dress shirt was torn at the collar, his sleeves rolled up, and his hands were steady as he lowered a smoking, black-finished SIG Sauer pistol.
His face wasn't angry.
It was terrifyingly, homicidally blank.
Dante’s gaze swept across the ruined kitchen, spotted the lifeless body of Solozzo’s enforcer, and finally locked onto me—bruised, bleeding, and trembling on the floor.
In two long strides, he crossed the room, dropping to his knees beside me.
His large, warm hands hovered over my arms, trembling slightly as they touched my face.
“Clara,” he whispered, his voice cracking with an emotion so raw and naked it made my breath catch. “Clara, look at me. Are you hit?”
“I’m... I’m okay,” I gasped, tears finally spilling over my lower eyelids. “Leo and Marta... they’re in the sub-level garage. They’re safe.”
Dante closed his eyes tightly for a fraction of a second, pulling me fiercely against his chest in a crushing, desperate embrace that squeezed every ounce of remaining fear out of my lungs.
“They hit the perimeter while I was on the bypass,” Dante murmured against my hair, his voice vibrating with a deadly, volcanic rage. “My men handled the rest of the crew outside before they made it past the courtyard. But you... you stayed behind to buy them time.”
“I did what I had to do,” I whispered against his shoulder.
Dante pulled back, cupping my face in his large, scarred hands, his amber-flecked eyes burning with a possessive, eternal fire.
“You are never, ever allowed to be this reckless again,” he ordered, though his voice shook.
May you like
“Then stop letting people try to burn down our home,” I answered softly, a fierce, defiant smile touching my lips.
Dante stared at me for a long, breathless beat, before leaning in and capturing my lips in a fierce, demanding kiss that tasted of gunpowder, desperation, and absolute, unbreakable devotion.
