Chapter 2 - The Enforcer's JudgmentFour heavy doors slammed shut in unison.
Heavy, polished dress shoes crunched purposefully on the gravel. Before Josie could even scramble to her feet, two towering men in impeccably tailored charcoal suits blocked her escape. They wore expressionless faces carved from granite, their eyes scanning the alley with the cold, calculated efficiency of elite executioners.
"Step away from the animal, miss," the taller one commanded, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that brooked zero argument. He rested a gloved hand casually inside his suit jacket, right where the heavy, unmistakable bulge of a shoulder holster rested.
Josie stood up slowly, planting her boots firmly in front of the bleeding dog, using her thin frame as an impossible barrier. "He’s dying! He needs a vet, not you guys staring him down like executioners! What did you do to him?"
A third man emerged from the back seat of the SUV. He didn't wear a standard suit; instead, he wore a bespoke trench coat over a black turtleneck. He was older, maybe in his late forties, with silver-streaked hair, piercing ice-blue eyes, and a sharp, aristocratic jawline marred by a faint, jagged scar running down to his collar.
Vance Thorne.
Even on the lawless streets of the South Side, people whispered his name with a trembling breath. The undisputed ghost king of the Chicago underworld—a man who owned politicians, judges, and entire neighborhoods, and who traded in blood, silence, and absolute power.
Vance walked slowly toward them, his hands tucked into his pockets, his gaze fixed entirely on the massive Cane Corso behind Josie. When his eyes finally flickered up to meet Josie’s defiant gray stare, the temperature in the alley seemed to drop another ten degrees.
"You're standing on private property, young lady," Vance said, his voice terrifyingly calm, devoid of any emotional cadence. "And more importantly, you are interfering with property that belongs to me."
"Property?" Josie’s voice shook, but her fury outweighed her terror. "He’s a living, breathing creature! Look at him! You people did this to him, didn't you? If you're going to kill him, you'll have to go through me first!"
May you like
Vance stopped three paces away. He tilted his head, studying her with a strange, clinical curiosity, as if she were an exotic bug he had never encountered before.
"Go through you?" Vance repeated softly, a dangerous, humorless smile touching the corner of his lips. "That sounds remarkably inconvenient. Max... move her."
