Chapter 8 - The Price of Disloyalty
Marcus didn't even get to finish his smirk.
The heavy oak door at the far end of the gallery swung open with a violent bang, slamming against the stone wall so hard plaster rained down from the ceiling.
Victor stood in the doorway.
He wasn't wearing his suit jacket anymore. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing the corded muscle of his forearms, and his face had gone completely, terrifyingly blank. It was the face of a executioner who had just found a rat in his pantry.
Marcus froze, his gun still pointed at my chest. "Boss—I can explain—"
"You have thirty seconds to tell me why my senior capo is standing in my private gallery with a slicer device pointed at my wife," Victor’s voice was terrifyingly soft, cutting through the silence of the hallway like a razor blade.
"Victor, he's working with Moretti!" I shouted, stepping to the side to clear the line of fire. "He’s disabling the perimeter sensors!"
Marcus panicked. In a split second of suicidal desperation, he swung his gun away from me and aimed it straight at Victor’s chest.
He never pulled the trigger.
A deafening roar echoed through the gallery as two heavy-caliber rounds tore through Marcus’s chest from behind. Marcus dropped his gun, his eyes wide with absolute shock, and collapsed face-first onto the marble floor in a pool of darkening blood.
Behind him, standing in the doorway with a smoking SIG Sauer, was Frankie Gallo, flanked by four heavily armed tactical guards.
"Trash disposed of, Boss," Frankie grunted, stepping over the body.
Victor didn't look at Marcus. He didn't even blink. His pale, icy eyes remained locked on me as he strode across the gallery floor. He closed the distance between us in three long strides, his massive hands reaching out to grab my shoulders, spinning me around to inspect every inch of my body.
"Are you hurt?" he demanded, his voice thick with a raw, buried panic that he couldn't quite mask. "Did he touch you?"
"I'm fine, Victor," I breathed, placing my hands against his chest, feeling the frantic, hammering rhythm of his heart beneath my palms. "I'm completely fine."
Victor pulled me into his arms, crushing me against his chest so hard my ribs ached. He buried his face in my neck, his breath warm and shuddering against my skin.
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"If he had hurt you," Victor whispered, his voice trembling with a dark, murderous promise, "I would have burned Moretti's entire empire to ash and salted the earth where it stood."
Around us, the guards stood in respectful silence, stepping quietly over the body of a traitor while their king held his queen in the shadows of the gallery.
