Chapter 7 - The Reckoning in the Dark
The heavy wooden door tore open with a deafening crack, splintering into the dark living room.
Inside, two men dressed in civilian clothes spun around, pulling handguns from their jackets, their eyes wide with panic in the sudden pitch-black darkness.
Alessio didn't shoot. In the confined space of a small apartment, firing weapons risked hitting an unseen civilian.
He moved like a mountain lion.
He slammed his massive shoulder into the first attacker, throwing the man backward into a glass coffee table that shattered into a thousand pieces under his weight. Before the second man could raise his pistol, Dominic stepped in from the side, striking him across the jaw with the heavy steel butt of his weapon, knocking him cold before he hit the floorboards.
Alessio stood over the first attacker, who was groaning in the shattered glass, trying to reach for his dropped gun.
Alessio brought his heavy boot down on the man’s wrist with a sickening CRACK.
The man let out a high-pitched scream of agony.
“Where is Matteo Moretti?” Alessio demanded, his voice dead silent, dropping onto one knee and grabbing the man by his collar, lifting his hundred-and-eighty-pound frame off the floor with one hand.
“In... in the back room!” the man gasped, weeping from the pain in his broken wrist. “He’s holding the girl!”
Fiona pushed past Dominic into the dark living room. “Sarah!” she called out frantically. “Sarah!”
From behind the closed bedroom door at the end of the hallway, a muffled, terrified cry answered. “Fiona? Fiona, help me!”
Fiona rushed toward the door, but Alessio grabbed her arm, pulling her safely behind his broad back.
“Stay behind me,” Alessio ordered sharply.
He didn't wait. He kicked the bedroom door open, stepping inside with his Sig Sauer raised.
Inside, lit only by the faint silver moonlight coming through the window, stood Matteo Moretti—a thin, gray-haired man in an expensive leather coat. He had a young woman with curly brown hair held tightly against his chest, his left arm wrapped around her neck, a nickel-plated revolver pressed firmly against her temple.
Sarah Bennett was crying hysterically, her frame shaking violently in his grip.
“Step back, Romano!” Moretti screamed, his voice high-pitched and unhinged with desperate terror. “Step back or I splatter her brains all over this wall!”
Alessio stopped three feet inside the room. He didn't raise his hands. He didn't drop his gun. He stood tall, broad, and terrifying, his ice-blue eyes fixing on Moretti with a cold, absolute detachment that seemed to suck all the air out of the room.
“You’re an idiot, Matteo,” Alessio said softly.
Moretti’s hand trembled against Sarah’s head. “I said back off! I’m taking the girl! You took my brother from me, Romano! You destroyed my family!”
“Your brother tried to murder an infant in a stroller,” Alessio replied smoothly, taking a slow, deliberate step forward. “And now you stand in a girl’s bedroom threatening a civilian because you were too cowardly to face me at my front gate.”
“Don't move!” Moretti shrieked, pressing the barrel deeper into Sarah’s skin. “I’ll do it! I swear to God I’ll shoot her!”
Behind Alessio, Fiona stepped into the doorway, her voice breaking. “Please! Don't hurt my sister! Take me instead!”
Moretti’s eyes darted toward Fiona for a fraction of a second—a tiny, fatal split-second of lost focus.
That was all Alessio needed.
In one blinding, impossibly fast motion, Alessio didn't fire at Moretti’s head. He lunged forward, his massive left hand closing like a vise around the cylinder of Moretti’s nickel-plated revolver, jamming the mechanical hammer so it could not strike the bullet primer.
CLICK.
Moretti pulled the trigger in sheer panic, but the gun failed to fire.
Alessio twisted the gun violently outward, breaking Moretti’s finger inside the trigger guard with a loud SNAP, ripping the weapon completely out of his grip and throwing Sarah safely into Fiona’s waiting arms behind him.
Moretti let out a howl of pain, stumbling backward against the window.
Alessio didn't hesitate. He grabbed Moretti by his throat with both hands, lifting the man completely off his feet, and slammed him back-first against the wall so hard the drywall cracked behind his head.
Moretti kicked his legs uselessly in the air, his face turning a dark, gasping purple as Alessio’s fingers closed like iron bands around his windpipe.
“You came to my city,” Alessio whispered, his face inches from Moretti’s, his voice vibrating with an ancient, dark rage. “You threatened my son. You threatened the woman I love. And now your family ends tonight.”
“Alessio!” Fiona’s voice echoed through the room.
Alessio froze.
He stopped, his thumbs pressed deep into Moretti’s throat, two seconds away from snapping the man’s neck like a dry twig.
He turned his head slowly.
Fiona stood in the doorway, holding her weeping, shaking sister tightly in her arms. She wasn't looking at him with fear. She was looking at him with a deep, quiet plea for his own soul.
“Don't do it like this,” Fiona whispered softly. “Not in front of us. Don't let him turn you into a monster again.”
Alessio stared at her. The wild, dark fire in his eyes slowly receded, replaced by the cool clarity of a man who suddenly realized he had a life worth living for after the war was over.
He looked back at the gasping, terrified man in his grip.
Alessio didn't snap his neck.
Instead, he slammed Moretti down onto the floor, pulling a set of heavy steel zip-ties from Dominic’s tactical vest, binding the man’s hands and ankles so tightly the circulation cut off instantly.
Alessio stood up, straightening his black sweater, turning his back on his defeated enemy.
“Dominic,” Alessio said, his voice completely calm.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Call the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Tell Special Agent Vance that Matteo Moretti is tied up in a bedroom in Evanston with a mountain of illegal weapons and a confession waiting to be signed. Let the federal court give him life without parole.”
Dominic blinked, a massive smile breaking across his face. “On it, boss.”
Alessio walked past the groaning man on the floor, stepping straight up to Fiona and Sarah.
Sarah was sobbing against Fiona’s shoulder, looking up at the tall, broad man with wide, terrified eyes. “F-Fiona... who is he?”
Fiona looked up at Alessio, her brown eyes shining with tears of relief, love, and profound gratitude.
“He’s the man who saved us,” Fiona whispered, reaching out her hand and resting it over Alessio’s heart.
May you like
Alessio covered her hand with his own, holding it tight.
“Let’s go home,” Alessio said softly. “Our son is waiting.”
