Chapter 8 - The Wrath of the Kingpin
Twenty-eight minutes had passed.
Blood trickled down my collarbone from three shallow cuts Catherine had inflicted on my neck and shoulder, taunting me like a cat playing with a captured bird. I had refused to give her the satisfaction of screaming. Every time the blade touched my skin, I stared directly into her eyes, refusing to break.
“Why won't you beg?!” Catherine screamed in frustration, raising the knife to plunge it toward my cheek. “BEG ME!”
Suddenly, the world went completely dark.
The massive industrial floodlights illuminating the warehouse died instantly. The hum of the backup generators cut out with a violent mechanical whine. Pitch blackness swallowed the entire space.
“What happened to the power?!” Moretti yelled, his voice laced with sudden panic. “Vasquez! Check the breaker!”
Through the darkness, a high-frequency whine echoed from the rooftop rafters.
Then came the shattering of glass.
*CRASH!*
Four smoke canisters plummeted through the skylights, bursting across the concrete floor, filling the warehouse with thick, blinding white chemical smoke.
“Night vision! Turn on your night vision!” Moretti roared, racking the slide of his shotgun.
A mercenary clicked on his tactical goggles. “I don't see anything, boss, the smoke is too—*ARGH!*”
A sickening crunch of breaking bones silenced the mercenary. The heavy thud of a body hitting the floor was followed by the metallic clatter of an assault rifle skidding across the concrete.
“CONTACT!” another gunman screamed, firing wildly into the fog. *RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!*
Muzzle flashes strobed through the smoke like miniature lightning strikes. But the figure moving through the shadows wasn't human. It was a predator.
A shadow emerged from the rafters, dropping onto the second shooter with terrifying speed. A combat knife gleamed in the strobing light, followed by a choked gurgle as the shooter collapsed.
Panic exploded among Moretti’s men.
“He’s alone! He’s just one man!” Moretti fired his shotgun toward the catwalks. “KILL HIM!”
From the thick curtain of smoke directly behind Moretti, a voice spoke—deep, resonant, and dripping with pure, unadulterated vengeance.
“I am not alone, Antonio.”
*BANG.*
Moretti shrieked as a heavy caliber round tore through his right knee, shattering the joint. He collapsed to the floor, clutching his leg, screaming in agony.
Catherine panicked. Dropping her knife, she turned toward the emergency exit, but the heavy steel doors were violently kicked inward from the outside. Marcus, flanked by a dozen elite Greer tactical operators in full body armor, stormed through the breach, their laser sights sweeping the warehouse, dropping the remaining two mercenaries with surgical double-taps.
The smoke began to clear.
Standing in the center of the kill-zone, illuminated by the tactical flashlights mounted to his rifle, was Ryan Greer.
He wore black tactical gear, his eyes burning with an unholy fury that made him look like the devil himself crawling out of the abyss. His hands were covered in carbon and blood.
He didn't look at Moretti writhing on the floor. He didn't look at Catherine, who was now pressed against a stack of crates, sobbing hysterically in absolute terror.
His eyes locked onto me.
He saw the ropes binding me. He saw the blood soaking my collarbone. He saw the bruises blooming across my face.
A sound tore from Ryan’s throat—a low, feral roar of pure agony and rage that chilled every man in the room to their very core.
He dropped his rifle, pulling his sidearm as he stalked toward Moretti.
“Greer... please! It was the girl! Catherine paid me!” Moretti wept, dragging himself backward across the filthy floor. “Take the ports! Take everything! Just let me live!”
Ryan walked up to Moretti, stepped his heavy tactical boot directly onto the shattered knee, and pressed the barrel of his pistol against Moretti’s forehead.
“You touched Diane,” Ryan whispered, his finger tightening on the trigger.
“Ryan, NO!” I cried out, my voice cracking through the smoke.
Ryan froze.
Slowly, he turned his head to look at me. His eyes were wide, consumed by bloodlust, barely recognizing reality.
“Ryan... don't,” I pleaded, tears cutting clean paths through the grime on my cheeks. “Sadie needs you. *I* need you. Don't throw away your soul for this garbage. Please. Come get me.”
The words seemed to pierce through the red haze of his fury.
Ryan looked down at Moretti, then back at me. He slowly lowered the gun.
“Marcus,” Ryan said, his voice flat, emotionless.
“Boss?”
“Call the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hand them the offshore accounts, the human trafficking manifests, and Antonio Moretti on a silver platter. Let him spend the next forty years in a federal supermax facility.”
Ryan then turned his gaze onto Catherine Voss, who was trembling so violently she could barely stand.
“And her?” Marcus asked, pointing his rifle at Catherine.
“Catherine Voss died tonight,” Ryan said coldly. “Strip her name. Strip her citizenship. Deliver her to the border authorities with the Voss syndicate indictment files. She will spend the rest of her life in an orange jumpsuit, scrubbing prison latrines for pennies.”
Catherine collapsed onto her knees, wailing, burying her face in her hands as Marcus’s men hauled her away.
Then, the world faded.
Ryan sprinted the remaining distance to my chair. He drew a combat blade and sliced through the nylon ropes in a single motion.
The moment the ropes gave way, I collapsed forward into his arms.
Ryan caught me, pulling me violently against his chest. He sank to his knees on the concrete, wrapping his arms around me so tightly I could barely breathe, burying his face in my neck, inhaling my scent like a drowning man breaking the surface of the water.
“Diane... Diane...” he choked out, his massive body trembling.
For the first time since I met him, the terrifying mafia boss was crying. Hot tears fell from his eyes onto my bare, bleeding shoulder.
“I’m here, Ryan,” I sobbed, wrapping my bruised arms around his neck, holding him with everything I had left. “I’m here. You saved me.”
“I almost lost you,” he whispered, his voice shattering into raw, jagged pieces. “I swear to God, I almost lost you.”
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He pulled back, his bloodstained hands gently framing my face, his thumbs wiping away my tears before his mouth crashed against mine in a desperate, frantic, life-affirming kiss that washed away the horror of the warehouse, sealing our souls together in the dark.
***