Chapter 4 - The Demon of the West Wing
Splintered wood and metal hardware rained across the entryway.
Before the dust could settle, a flash of motion blurred through the doorway.
Victor Romano stepped into the apartment. He wore a dark wool overcoat, his eyes burning with an absolute, lethal rage that made the temperature in the room feel like it had dropped to sub-zero.
Behind him, Paulie and four Romano enforcers flooded the room with silenced submachine guns.
Moretti spun around, grabbing Tessa by her hair and pulling her in front of him as a human shield, pressing his knife against her throat.
"Back off, Romano!" Moretti yelled, his confidence crumbling into desperate panic. "Back off or I cut her throat right here!"
Victor didn't stop walking. He didn't raise his voice. He walked forward until he was standing five feet away from Moretti’s knife.
"Moretti," Victor said, his voice terrifyingly quiet. "You made three mistakes tonight."
Moretti squeezed Tessa tighter, blood trickling down her neck from the pressure of the blade. "Shut up! I'll kill her!"
"First," Victor continued, ignoring the threat entirely, "you stepped onto my territory. Second, you touched something that belongs to me."
"She's a nobody!" Moretti screamed. "She's a damn maid!"
"And third," Victor’s amber eyes flickered with a sudden, violent spark, "you assumed I came through the front door alone."
A red laser sight appeared on Moretti’s forehead.
Before Moretti could pull the trigger or slice his blade, a suppressed gunshot cracked through the apartment window from the rooftop across the street. A tiny red hole appeared between Moretti’s eyes.
Moretti’s grip loosened immediately. He crumpled to the floor like a sack of bricks.
The remaining two intruders tried to draw their weapons, but Paulie’s men filled them with bullets before they could clear their holsters.
Within four seconds, the room was silent again, save for the sound of Tessa’s frantic, ragged breathing.
Victor stepped over Moretti’s body. He dropped to his knees in front of Tessa, his large, warm hands gently cupping her face, inspecting the small scratch on her neck where the knife had touched her.
"Tessa," Victor murmured, his voice trembling with a rare, terrifying emotion. "Are you hurt? Look at me. Are you okay?"
Tessa looked into his eyes—the eyes of a man who had just orchestrated three deaths without blinking, yet looked at her as if she were made of precious glass.
"You were sitting outside my apartment?" she asked softly, tears spilling over her cheeks.
May you like
Victor paused, his thumb gently wiping a tear from her cheek.
"I tried to let you go, Tessa," Victor whispered, his forehead resting against hers. "I tried for two weeks. But the darkness in my head doesn't stop unless you are near me. I am sorry."
