Chapter 2 - The Syndicate's Shadow
Glass exploded across the dining room like a shower of diamonds.
“Get down!” Viktor roared, drawing a sleek Sig Sauer from his jacket and diving across the table.
Two men in tactical black gear vaulted through the broken window, their suppressed submachine guns raised. They weren’t standard street thugs; their movements were clinical, precise, and entirely lethal. Hit squad.
Dominic didn’t flinch. He pulled his son tight against his chest, shielding the infant with his own body as he ducked behind a massive concrete pillar near the bar.
“Protect the boss!” shouts echoed across the room as the remaining bodyguards returned fire. Deafening cracks pierced the air, shattering wine bottles and sending expensive crystal raining down in shards.
I froze, paralyzed by the sudden violence. Four years ago, the hospital monitors had beeped their steady, agonizing flatline in a sterile room. Today, it was the sound of gunfire in a high-end Chicago restaurant. My chest tightened; the air refused to enter my lungs.
Not again. I can’t watch anyone else die.
One of the intruders pivoted toward the pillar where Dominic and the baby were hiding. His barrel lined up directly with the gap in the concrete.
Without thinking—driven by the mad, reckless instinct of someone who had already lost everything—I lunged forward, grabbing a heavy brass wine bucket from the service station and hurling it with all my might.
Clang!
The bucket struck the gunman square in the temple. He staggered sideways, his burst of gunfire chewing harmlessly into the ceiling drywall.
Viktor didn't hesitate. Two shots rang out, and the intruder collapsed, sliding lifelessly down the wallpapered wall.
The second hitman, realizing the element of surprise was lost, threw a flashbang grenade across the floor and scrambled backward through the broken window into the pouring rain.
Flash!
A blinding white light swallowed the room, accompanied by a deafening pop that left my ears ringing with a high-pitched whine.
When the white spots cleared from my vision, the restaurant was a war zone. Smoke drifted lazily toward the ceiling fans. The smell of cordite mixed with spilled Chianti.
Dominic stepped out from behind the pillar, his suit jacket ruined by soot and plaster dust. The baby was still crying, startled by the noise, but unharmed. Dominic handed the child to a trembling waiter, then walked slowly toward me.
His boots crunched on the broken glass. He stopped just inches away, towering over me in the hazy light.
“You threw a wine bucket at a professional hitman,” Dominic said, his voice dangerously low.
“He was aiming at the baby,” I said defiantly, refusing to cower despite the tremor in my hands.
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Dominic stared at me for a long, agonizing moment. Then, he reached out and gently brushed a shard of glass out of my hair.
“You’re out of a job, Elena,” he murmured. “Because starting tonight, you work for me.”
