Chapter 4 - THE STORM BREAKS OVER LOWER MANHATTAN
The confrontation at the opera house was not an isolated incident; it was the spark that ignited a brewing turf war.
Viktor Volkov, emboldened by rumors that Salvatore was softening due to his focus on me, made a aggressive bid to seize control of the Brooklyn piers. Over the next three weeks, tension mounted across New York. Drive-by shootings targeting Constantino warehouses made front-page news, shipping lanes were disrupted, and Salvatore was forced to work twenty-hour days to maintain his grip on the city.
Through it all, he doubled my security.
Two armed guards escorted me to my nursing lectures at Columbia University. A black armored SUV drove me to Sloan Kettering every afternoon to see my mother, whose cancer was now officially in complete remission.
Yet, I saw less of Salvatore. He kept his distance, clearly trying to shield me from the violent storm brewing between the syndicates.
It was a cold Tuesday night in late November when the storm finally reached my door.
I was sitting in my apartment studying for my pharmacology finals, a mug of warm tea resting beside my textbooks, when the power inside my building suddenly died.
The lights flickered once, twice, and vanished, plunging the apartment into pitch blackness.
My phone rang instantly on the desk.
"Lily! Stay down!" Salvatore's voice thundered through the speaker—frantic, urgent, completely stripped of his usual calm composure. "My guards outside were hit with suppressed weapons! Volkov’s men are inside your building!"
Before I could answer, the heavy wooden door of my apartment exploded inward with a deafening crash!
Two men in black tactical gear burst into the living room, their submachine guns raised!
"Get the girl! Move!" one of them barked in a heavy Russian accent.
Panic seized me, but my nursing instincts—honed by months of trauma training—kicked in. I grabbed the heavy porcelain lamp off my desk and slammed it violently across the face of the first intruder!
The glass shattered! The man groaned, stumbling backward, his weapon discharging into the floorboards!
I sprinted toward the kitchen, grabbing a heavy iron skillet from the stove, but the second man caught me by my arm, shoving me hard against the kitchen counter!
"Got her!" he yelled into his radio. "Bring the van to the back alley!"
Suddenly, the kitchen window overlooking the fire escape shattered in a blinding spray of glass!
A figure vaulted into the room with terrifying, unnatural speed!
It was Salvatore.
He didn't wear a tactical suit or body armor. He wore his dark charcoal suit, his face contorted in a mask of primal, absolute fury.
Before the guard holding me could turn his weapon, Salvatore grabbed the man’s wrist, twisting it until a sickening CRACK echoed through the kitchen! The man screamed as his gun dropped to the floor. Salvatore delivered a brutal knee to his chest, throwing him through the drywall into the hallway!
The first guard recovered, raising his weapon toward Salvatore’s back!
"Salvatore! Behind you!" I screamed!
Salvatore turned smoothly, pulling a sleek black pistol from his shoulder holster and firing three precise shots!
The suppressed pops were quiet—thwip, thwip, thwip—and the intruder collapsed instantly onto the floor, motionless.
Silence descended over the ruined apartment, broken only by my ragged breathing and the soft patter of rain outside the broken window.
Salvatore stood amidst the glass and drywall, his weapon held at low ready. He turned slowly toward me, his gray eyes searching my body for injury.
"Are you hurt, Lily?" he gasped, stepping over the fallen men and reaching for me.
"I'm fine... I'm fine," I sobbed, throwing my arms around his neck and burying my face against his chest.
May you like
Salvatore wrapped his large arms tightly around me, holding me against his broad frame with a protective, desperate strength that shook his entire body. He pressed his face into my hair, his breath warm and fast.
"They went too far," Salvatore growled into my hair, his voice dropping into a register of pure, lethal promise. "Viktor Volkov thought he could use you to break me. Tonight, I am going to erase his family from this city."
