My husband had just snapped my arm inside our apartment

Two minutes remaining.

Vincent didn't wear a raincoat. He walked across the flooded pavement in his charcoal wool coat, an unlit cigar held loosely between his fingers, his grey eyes fixed on the fourth-floor window.

Beside him stood a massive, broad-shouldered man with a scar running from his earlobe to his jawline—Marco, Vincent’s chief enforcer. Marco reached into the front seat of the lead Escalade, pulled out a heavy steel crowbar, and rested it casually against his thigh.

"Mark..." I rasped from the floor, my voice barely audible over the roaring in my ears. "Please..."

Mark backed away from the window as if he had just seen a ghost. His face was entirely devoid of color, his skin a pasty, sickly white.

"Who are those guys?" he stammered, his bravado entirely evaporated. "Who did you call, Lena? Tell me!"

He ran to the front door, slamming the heavy brass deadbolt into place, then throwing the secondary chain lock across the track. He grabbed the heavy wooden dining chair and wedged it under the door handle, his hands shaking so violently he dropped his glass onto the carpet, where it shattered without a sound.

From four flights down, the building’s heavy oak entrance doors were torn off their hinges with a violent, metallic crunch that echoed up the concrete stairwell.

Heavy, synchronized footsteps began to ascend the stairs.

They weren't taking the steps two at a time. They weren't breathless. It was a slow, steady, rhythmic march—thud, thud, thud—that grew louder with every passing second.

One minute remaining.

Mark backed into the center of the living room, grabbing his brass wrench off the coffee table, holding it with both hands like a baseball bat.

"I have a weapon!" Mark screamed toward the hallway door, his voice cracking into a high-pitched screech. "I have a gun! I'll shoot the first guy who comes through that door!"

The footsteps stopped outside Apartment 4B.

Absolute silence filled the hallway.

Mark stood frozen, sweat dripping off the tip of his nose onto his shirt collar. He held his breath, his eyes wide with wild, unadulterated terror.

Then came a knock.

Not a kick. Not a ram.