Chapter 2 - The Wrath of the Kingpin
The speed of Vincent’s charge stunned the entire restaurant into paralyzed submission.
Chase Montgomery barely had time to blink before an iron fist seized him by his custom silk collar.
The sheer kinetic force hoisted the two-hundred-pound millionaire completely off his feet like a rag doll.
With a thunderous crash, Vincent slammed Chase backward into the solid marble pillar.
The impact splintered the decorative sconce behind Chase’s head, showering plaster dust over his hair.
Chase choked, his feet dangling six inches above the floor as the collar cut off his oxygen.
“YOU JUST TOUCHED MY FUTURE WIFE!” Vincent roared, a sound so primal and deafening that crystal glasses rattled on surrounding tables.
The dining room went completely breathless.
Chase’s arrogant smirk evaporated in an instant, replaced by a gray sheen of absolute, bladder-emptying terror.
His two friends scrambled away from the booth, knocking over their chairs and cowering beneath the neighboring tablecloths.
Nobody in the city of New York dared cross Vincent Moretti and lived to see the following dawn.
The realization slammed into Chase like a runaway freight train: the waitress he had just brutalized was untouchable royalty.
Vincent’s eyes burned with a lethal madness that signaled a violent death sentence.
His fingers tightened on Chase’s windpipe, veins bulging across his forearms as the millionaire began to turn blue.
Yet, even amid his homicidal rage, Vincent’s peripheral vision caught the dark puddle spreading beneath Emma’s motionless head.
The murderous fire in his gaze suddenly shattered into something infinitely more devastating.
Terror.
Raw, unadulterated, desperate terror.
Vincent dropped Chase like a sack of garbage, letting the choking millionaire crash heavily onto the wine-soaked floor.
Turning his back on his prey without another glance, the terrifying mob boss dropped heavily to his knees in the broken glass.
He didn't care about the sharp shards piercing the fabric of his thousand-dollar trousers.
He only cared about the faint, shallow rise and fall of Emma’s chest.
“Emma? Emma, look at me, baby, can you hear my voice?” Vincent whispered, his voice cracking with unbearable anguish.
His massive hands, which had crushed criminal empires without flinching, trembled uncontrollably as they hovered over her cheek.
He was terrified to touch her, terrified that the slightest movement might break her fragile bones.
Emma did not respond.
Her skin was turning translucent, a soft sigh of pain escaping her parted lips as blood continued to stain her golden-brown hair.
Vincent gently cupped the uninjured side of her face, feeling the cold dampness of shock setting into her skin.
“CALL AN AMBULANCE! NOW! IF SHE DIES, EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THIS ROOM BURNS TO ASH!” Vincent bellowed without looking up.
His head of security, Marco, instantly whipped out an encrypted phone, screaming commands to dispatch the city’s top surgical unit.
The patrons huddled together, trembling in the dark corners, weeping quietly and praying for the girl to breathe.
Beside the shattered table, Chase lay curled up, wheezing painfully for air.
Suddenly, from inside his tailored jacket, his smartphone began to vibrate furiously.
A harsh blue light illuminated his trembling face as the screen flashed with an incoming encrypted notification.
With shaking fingers, Chase slid the device toward his face, his vision blurred by tears of fear.
An anonymous message glared back at him in bold, chilling letters.
“YOU HIT THE WRONG GIRL. FIND THE NECKLACE BEFORE HE DOES!”
Chase’s heart plummeted into a freezing abyss.
The drunken fog in his brain instantly evaporated, replaced by the horrifying realization of what he had gotten himself into.
His trembling eyes drifted slowly across the polished floor toward the unconscious waitress.
There, nestled beneath her torn white collar, rested a delicate silver chain.
A small, oval pendant had slipped out, resting against her pale collarbone.
It gleamed beneath the harsh chandelier light, catching the eye of every watchful predator.
Vincent, kneeling directly over her, noticed Chase’s frantic stare shift downward.
Vincent’s sharp gaze followed the trajectory and landed on the tiny silver ornament.
The moment Vincent saw the engraved sigil on the pendant, his entire posture locked into stone.
A strange, ancient coat of arms was carved into the silver—a crest thought to have been eradicated fifteen years ago in blood and flames.
It was the sigil of the fallen Romano dynasty.
The secret Vincent had spent his entire life hunting.
The very secret that had tied his soul to Emma since the day she disappeared.
Vincent’s expression darkened from frantic desperation to an unfathomable, cosmic fury.
He slowly rose to his feet, towering over the cowering millionaire like a demon summoned from the depths of hell.
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“Who sent you after her?” Vincent whispered, the quietness of his tone far more terrifying than any roar.
Chase could only stare in horror, knowing that no amount of money could save him from the storm he had unleashed.
