Chapter 4 - The King’s Hound
The silence in the east dining room was so heavy that the hum of the overhead vents sounded like a jet engine.
Victor Sterling didn't take off his coat. He didn't look at the manager who was currently crawling out from behind the service station, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. He walked across the Persian rug with slow, measured strides, his heavy leather shoes making a deep, rhythmic thud against the wood.
Dylan Burroughs stood up slowly from his seat, his polished corporate confidence suddenly looking very thin, very fragile.
“Mr. Sterling,” Dylan said, pasting a strained, diplomatic smile across his face as he extended a hand. “I didn't realize you were dining at Blackwoods tonight. My father and I have discussed the port expansion contracts, and—”
Victor walked straight past Dylan’s outstretched hand as if the younger man were made of clear glass.
Dylan’s hand hovered in the air for a second before he awkwardly dropped it back to his side, a hot flush of embarrassment staining his cheeks.
Victor stopped three feet away from Molly and the mastiff.
For a terrifying moment, nobody breathed. Libby Kemp, still standing with her red stiletto poised near Molly’s injured side, offered a nervous, brittle laugh, tossing her blond hair over her shoulder.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re here, Mr. Sterling,” Libby chirped, pitching her voice into her most charming, high-society register. “This wretched little waitress dragged a diseased stray off the alley and tracked blood all over our engagement dinner. I was just—augh!”
Vance, the towering enforcer, moved so fast he was a blur.
In less than a second, Vance’s massive hand shot out, gripped Libby by the expensive silk fabric of her collar, and lifted her three inches off the floor like she weighed nothing at all.
Libby choked out a terrified gurgle, her hands flying to Vance’s wrist as her feet kicked frantically against the air. “Put me down! Do you know who my father is?! Do you know who he is?!” she shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at Dylan.
Dylan took a half-step forward, his voice tight and authoritative. “Hey! Let her go right now. You’re making a massive mistake—that’s a Burroughs!”
Victor Sterling finally turned his head.
His ice-blue eyes locked onto Dylan Burroughs with a weight that made the younger man physically step backward, his legs hitting the edge of his chair.
“A Burroughs,” Victor repeated, his voice smooth, quiet, and absolutely lethal. “Four days ago, your father begged me for a thirty-day extension on his municipal debt. Today, your future wife kicked my dog.”
The words dropped into the room like lead weights.
Dylan’s face went the color of skim milk. “Your... your dog?”
Victor didn't answer him. He dropped to one knee on the blood-stained carpet—right beside Molly Lane.
The contrast was staggering. The most feared man in the Northeast, dressed in clothes worth more than a luxury sedan, kneeling in the dirt and spilled wine beside a beaten, minimum-wage waitress.
“Brutus,” Victor whispered.
The massive mastiff let out a low, shuddering whine, his heavy tail giving a single, pathetic thump against the floorboards. He dragged his snout forward, resting it against Victor’s black cashmere sleeve.
Victor’s hand, usually steady enough to sign multi-million-dollar asset forfeitures without a tremor, shook slightly as he ran his fingers through the graying, matted fur of the dog’s neck. He found the pale line where a heavy steel tracking collar had been forcibly sawed off with industrial shears.
“Who did this?” Victor asked.
It wasn't directed at Dylan. It wasn't directed at the room.
He was looking directly at Molly.
Molly swallowed hard, the pain in her ribs flaring as she spoke. “He... he crawled through the service alley ten minutes ago. He was bleeding. I... I just tried to keep him safe.”
Victor looked up. His eyes swept over the bruised skin on Molly’s shoulder, the torn fabric of her black server’s vest, and the crimson imprint of Libby’s stiletto heel on the floor beside her.
Then he looked back at Vance, still holding a suffocating, purple-faced Libby in the air.
“Break her ankle,” Victor said softly.
Crack.
The sound of bone snapping echoed like a gunshot through the cavernous dining room, followed instantly by Libby’s ear-piercing, animalistic shriek of agony. Vance dropped her limp, sobbing form onto the floor, where she curled into a fetal position, clutching her mangled foot and screaming bloody murder.
“You broke her foot! You psychotic bastard!” Dylan roared, lunging forward with his fists clenched, blind with rage and panic.
Vance didn't even draw a weapon. He simply stepped inside Dylan’s wild swing, delivered a short, brutal palm-strike to Dylan’s sternum that lifted him off his feet, and slammed him face-first onto the mahogany dining table. Crystal wine glasses shattered under Dylan’s jaw, spraying red wine and shards across the white tablecloth.
“Clear the room,” Victor said, his voice never rising above a conversational tone as he gently lifted Brutus into his arms, ignoring the blood soaking into his expensive suit.
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Within five seconds, forty of Harrow Falls’s most powerful people were scrambling toward the exits like terrified sheep, tripping over their own expensive shoes in their rush to escape the slaughterhouse.
Only Molly remained on the floor, shivering, bleeding, and wondering which nightmare she had just stumbled into.
