Chapter 4 - The Sound of Gunpowder
The world dissolved into absolute chaos.
I stumbled backward, my heel catching on the edge of the rag rug, and collapsed onto the hardwood floor. My hands instinctively went to my stomach, shielding the baby as the heavy oak door violently rebounded off the wall. The Moretti enforcer stepped into the apartment, his hand reaching inside his trench coat to pull a silenced Beretta from his waistband.
"Nothing personal, sweetheart," he muttered, his eyes tracking the distinct curve of my belly through the oversized sweater. His expression shifted from cold professional to sudden, malicious realization. "Well, well. Look at that. The Chicago don left a little souvenir behind, didn't he? That changes the price tag."
"Please," I sobbed, dragging myself backward across the floor until my spine hit the base of the velvet armchair. "Please, don't. There's no one here. I don't know anything about his business. I haven't spoken to him in months."
"That's the problem with you civilians," a second voice said as another man stepped into the room, his leather gloves stained with melting snow. "You think distance changes the bloodline. If that kid breathes, the Moretti alliance is a joke before it even starts."
The first man raised the Beretta, pointing it directly at my forehead. I closed my eyes, a single, agonizing thought flashing through my mind: I'm sorry, my baby. I couldn't save you.
A sound like thunder tore through the narrow hallway outside.
The heavy drywall next to the doorframe exploded outward in a violent shower of white dust and splinters. The first enforcer didn't even have time to turn around before three heavy-caliber bullets punched through his back, his body throwing itself forward onto the floorboards with a wet, heavy thud.
The second man screamed an oath, pivoting toward the hallway, his weapon firing blindly through the cloud of plaster dust. But he was already dealing with a ghost.
A massive figure breached the shattered doorway like a physical hurricane. Dominic Russo didn't use a silencer. The roar of his Kimber .45 was absolute, filling the small apartment with a deafening, rhythmic violence that shook the old glass windows in their frames. He took two steps into the room, his gray eyes burning with a demonic, feral rage, and fired twice into the second enforcer’s chest. The man flew backward, crashing through my small kitchen table, scattering cheap plates and silverware across the linoleum before going completely still.
The silence that followed was heavy with the smell of sulfur, copper, and burning gunpowder.
I sat paralyzed against the armchair, my body shaking so hard my teeth were chattering, my eyes wide as I stared at the two dead men on my floor. Through the settling white dust, Dominic slowly lowered his weapon, his chest heaving under his charcoal wool coat. His face was covered in a thin layer of plaster, his expensive leather boots dark with the blood of the men he had just executed.
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He turned his head toward me. The terrifying, murderous aura that had just cleared the room vanished instantly, replaced by a desperate, shattering vulnerability. He dropped his custom pistol onto the floorboards, his knees hitting the wood with a heavy hollow sound as he crawled toward me.
"Megan," he choked out, his large hands trembling violently as he reached for my face, stopping just inches away as if he were terrified that his touch would break me. "Megan, please tell me you're okay. Please tell me they didn't touch you."
