The wooden frame of the bathroom door gave way with a deafening screech, sending jagged splinters flying through the dim air like shrapnel.

I pressed myself harder against the cold tiles, biting down on my lower lip so hard I tasted iron. My left arm hung completely dead at my side, a grotesque pendulum that sent a white-hot spike of agony through my collarbone with every micro-movement.

Marcus stepped through the wreckage, his tall frame casting a long, distorted shadow over the ruined porcelain of the sink. In his right hand, he held a tumbler of amber bourbon, the ice cubes clinking lazily against the glass. His eyes were wide, bloodshot at the edges, glazed over with a toxic cocktail of alcohol and unbridled rage.

"Who were you talking to, Lena?" His voice was a low, mocking purr, dripping with a terrifying sense of ownership. He crouched down, bringing his face inches from mine. The smell of cheap whiskey and sour sweat washed over me. "Was it your little boyfriend from the diner? Did you call the police? Oh, sweetheart... you know the cops can't climb these stairs fast enough."

I didn't answer. I couldn't. Every ounce of energy I had left was being funneled into a silent, desperate mental prayer.

Seven minutes and forty seconds.

That was all that was left of Vincent Moretti’s promise.

Marcus reached out, his thick fingers grabbing a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back so hard my neck popped. A whimper escaped my throat despite my best efforts.

"Look at me when I talk to you!" he snarled, tightening his grip. "After everything I do for you—putting a roof over your head, working myself to the bone—you pull this shit? You think crying to a stranger is going to change your life? You think anyone gives a damn about a broken, worthless waitress?"

He raised his free hand, palm open, ready to strike my face. I closed my eyes, bracing for the impact, preparing for the darkness to finally take me.

Thump.

It wasn't the smack of a fist against skin. It was a dull, heavy thud that vibrated through the floorboards of the hallway.

Marcus paused, his hand hovering in mid-air. His head snapped toward the apartment’s front entrance.

"What the hell was that?" he muttered, dropping my hair.

I opened my eyes, my heart hammering violently against my cracked ribs.

Five minutes remaining.

Down in the concrete corridor of our cheap apartment building, a sound echoed that didn't belong. It wasn't the sound of a slamming door or a neighbor returning home with groceries. It was the synchronized, heavy click of leather-soled shoes marching with absolute, terrifying precision.

Step. Step. Step.

No hesitation. No noise. Just an unstoppable, mechanical advance.

Marcus stood up, towering over me, his brow furrowing in confusion and a sudden, sharp spike of unease. He tossed his whiskey glass aside, letting it shatter against the bathroom tiles, and stepped out into the hallway.

"Hey! Who's out there? Get the hell away from my door!" Marcus yelled, his bravado returning as he stormed toward the living room.

I dragged myself up using the edge of the bathtub, leaning my weight against the wall. The pain was blinding, a chorus of screaming nerves, but I forced my legs to hold me. I had to see. I had to know if the ghost I had called on the phone was real.

Marcus reached the front door and threw it open, ready to scream at whoever was in the hall.

The words died in his throat.

Standing in the dim, flickering light of the apartment hallway was not a cop. It was not a landlord.

It was a wall of black wool and cold steel.

Three men in bespoke, charcoal-grey suits stood shoulder-to-shoulder, blocking the exit. Their faces were carved from granite, their eyes dead, empty, and devoid of any human warmth. But they weren't the ones who caught Marcus’s breath.

Stepping out from between them was a man whose presence completely choked the oxygen out of the space.

Vincent Moretti.

He wore a tailored black overcoat, the collar turned up against the chill of the night. He didn't look like a man who had just driven across New York City at breakneck speed. He looked like an executioner who had arrived precisely on schedule.

Vincent didn't look at Marcus. Not yet. His dark, impenetrable eyes bypassed the trembling husband entirely, locking straight onto the hallway mirror that reflected the open bathroom door—and me, standing there, bleeding and broken.

A single, infinitesimal twitch of his jaw muscle betrayed the atomic fury boiling beneath his calm exterior.

"You..." Marcus stammered, taking a panicked step back, his hands instantly rising defensively. "Who the fuck are you? What is this?"

Vincent finally shifted his gaze to Marcus. The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.

"You broke something that didn't belong to you," Vincent said softly. His voice wasn't loud, but it resonated through the apartment like the striking of a church bell tolling for the dead.

Marcus swallowed hard, his bravado evaporating like morning mist in the desert sun. "Look, man, whatever she told you, it's a lie—this is between a husband and wife—"

Vincent raised his right hand.

He didn't snap his fingers. He didn't yell an order.