Chapter 7 - The Soho Studio
The five-story brick building on 10th Avenue in Soho was dark, cold, and quiet.
The street outside was completely deserted, buried under twelve inches of drifting snow. The streetlights flickered erratically, their yellow glow muted by the howling wind and swirling white flakes.
On the top floor of the building, inside an expansive, high-ceilinged art studio filled with covered canvases, dusty wooden easels, and forgotten paint supplies, it was freezing.
Natalie Hart sat in the dark on an overturned wooden crate in the center of the room.
She was thirty years old, her pale skin ghostly under the faint light filtering through the snow-dusted skylight overhead.
She had discarded her dark winter coat. She was wearing an oversized gray wool sweater, pulled up to reveal her left side.
Around her ribs, wrapped tightly over a thick pad of bloody white gauze, were thick strips of black industrial duct tape she had found in the studio supply closet.
The gunshot wound she had suffered during the break-in at her Lake Placid cabin two nights ago was severe—a nine-millimeter bullet had grazed her lower ribs, ripping open a four-inch gash through her skin and muscle before exiting through her back.
She had stopped the heavy bleeding twice, but every breath she took felt like a hot iron pressing against her lungs. She was burning with a high fever, her lips cracked and dry, her dark eyes dilated with pain and sheer exhaustion.
She held a small, nickel-plated .38 revolver in her trembling right hand—a weapon her father had given her years ago. There were only three rounds left in the cylinder.
She raised her left hand, looking at a small, silver baby sock she had tucked into her sweater pocket before leaving Westchester.
She squeezed the tiny piece of cloth against her mouth, a silent, heartbroken sob wracking her shivering body.
“Be safe, Daniel,” she whispered into the freezing dark. “Please, God... let Gabriel protect you.”
She didn't regret what she had done.
For nine months, she had lived in hiding, terrified that Gabriel’s ruthless lifestyle or his vicious political enemies would destroy her unborn child. She had hated Gabriel for walking away from her in Soho, for telling her he didn't love her, for treating her like a temporary distraction in his violent life.
But when Dominic Valenti’s men had smashed through her cabin door in the mountains, shouting about Gabriel Moretti’s heir, Natalie had realized the terrifying truth.
Gabriel hadn't walked away from her because he was cold.
He had walked away because he knew his world was a meat grinder, and he was trying to shield her from the very monsters who had eventually found her cabin.
And when she had stood on the stone step of his Westchester estate five hours ago, seeing his broad frame open the heavy oak door, she had seen the absolute, undisguised shock and raw terror in his pale gray eyes.
She knew Gabriel Moretti would burn the city to ashes before he let anyone harm that baby.
A heavy sound echoed from the ground floor of the building.
CRACK.
The sound of a heavy boot kicking open the street-level security door.
Natalie froze, her hand tightening around the cold wooden grip of her .38 revolver.
Footsteps echoed up the wooden stairwell—heavy, slow, deliberate steps made by three or four men carrying weapons.
“Search every floor!” a rough, heavy Jersey voice shouted from the third-floor landing. “Carmine wants her alive! The old man wants to know where she put the kid before we put her in the river!”
Natalie squeezed her eyes shut. Tears spilled down her hot, feverish cheeks.
They had found her.
She stood up slowly from the wooden crate, her legs trembling violently under her weight, the agony in her side tearing a sharp gasp from her throat.
She walked toward the heavy oak door of her studio, raising the .38 revolver with both hands, aiming the barrel directly at the center panel of the door.
She had three bullets.
She would make every single one count.
The footsteps reached the top floor landing.
“She’s in here!” a voice barked outside her door. “The lock is fresh!”
A heavy shoulder slammed against the wood.
BOOM!
The hinges groaned.
Natalie took a deep breath, her finger tightening on the trigger of her revolver.
“Come in, you bastards,” she whispered.
Before the men outside could strike the door a second time, a sudden, terrifying storm of automatic weapons fire erupted from the stairwell behind them.
Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft! Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft!
The silent, rapid pops of suppressed high-caliber rifles tore through the hallway outside.
Screams of shock, curses, and the heavy thuds of bodies collapsing onto the wooden floorboards echoed through the thick oak door.
“Ambush!” a Jersey voice shrieked outside. “It’s Moretti’s men! It’s Moretti’s—”
A single, heavy handgun shot cut the sentence short.
BANG!
Then, complete and absolute silence fell over the top-floor hallway.
Natalie stood motionless behind her door, her heart pounding so fast she thought her chest would explode, her gun still raised, her eyes wide with terror.
The heavy oak door did not explode inward.
Instead, a gentle, familiar knock sounded on the wood—three slow, deliberate taps.
“Natalie,” a deep, gravelly voice spoke from the other side.
The voice was quiet, smooth, and carried a weight that made the entire frozen room feel instantly warm.
Natalie dropped her arms, her revolver slipping from her fingers, clattering onto the floorboards.
“Gabriel?” she breathed, her voice barely a whisper.
The door swung slowly open.
Standing in the doorway, framed by the dark hallway and two black-clad tactical operators standing guard over three unconscious Valenti enforcers, was Gabriel Moretti.
His dark wool coat was dusted with white snow. His heavy Sig Sauer P226 was held low in his right hand.
His pale gray eyes locked onto her face.
He didn't look like a mob boss. He didn't look like the ruthless executioner who controlled the Tri-State underground.
He looked like a man who had spent twelve years searching for something he didn't know he had lost, only to find it standing in the center of a frozen art studio.
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Gabriel dropped his weapon into his holster.
He took three long strides across the dusty floorboards, reached out with his heavy, warm arms, and pulled Natalie Hart against his chest.
