Where are you, Dallen?
I’m coming, baby.
I pull the car to a sudden stop, not bothering to find a parking spot, merely using the large pedestrian strip out front. The building is lit up, like most NY skyscrapers, but as we head toward the lobby, I can’t see the security guard who usually occupies the desk.
I start to run.
We burst through the door, Dallen’s father close on my heels. I skid to a stop as I lean over the desk. That’s when I see the guard. He isn’t sitting. He’s folded awkwardly behind the counter, one arm bent wrong beneath him, blood darkening the side of his head. The sight doesn’t register as shock. It registers as confirmation.
Romeros…
Chief Byrne vaults the counter and checks his pulse. “He’s alive,” he mutters. “Blunt force to the head by the looks of it.” He lays him down in a recovery position and picks up his phone. “I’ll call 9-1-1, but we need to get up to Dallen’s floor.”
We take the elevator, the small space enclosing me like a coffin. Each floor passes in heavy silence, broken only by our breathing. The higher we climb, the colder something settles in my chest — not fear exactly, but recognition. This is how leverage works. This is how you send a message.
Light spills into the elevator as the doors open.
And then I hear it.
A scuffle. A chair scraping violently across the floor. A sharp intake of breath that does not belong to someone in control. Pleading.
Dallen begging…
I react, oblivious to who’s standing beside me. I don’t consider optics, law, or consequences. I bolt down the hall, and the image that meets me will never be erased from my mind, no matter how hard I try.
Dallen is pinned to the floor, her arms trapped above her head in Elio Romero’s punishing grip. His naked lower body is positioned against her in a way that needs no explanation. Fury, cold and deadly, rages through me; something ancient and feral snaps free.
I cross the passage in three strides and wrench him off, throwing him several feet from Dallen. I come down on him immediately, drive my fist into his jaw so hard I feel bone give beneath my knuckles. He stumbles to his feet, and I let him, want him upright when I knock him back down. I hear Dallen sob her father’s name, her breath hitching as her father comforts her, leaving me to deal with this piece of shit.
Elio laughs. Actually laughs.
“You’re going to die tonight,” I say.
Blood runs from the corner of his mouth, and he wipes it away like this is a sport. Like he’s enjoying the evening. “Told you,” he spits. “Romeros always hit back. Pity you were so slow in getting here. You didn’t save her at all.”
His smirk makes the world before me turn red.
He lunges, but I’m over playing with my prey. I hit him again. And again. We crash into the wall, drywall splintering beneath our weight. He drives his shoulder into my ribs, and we careen into a bookshelf, law journals raining down around us. He’s stronger than I remember, quicker, too. He gets a punch in that snaps my head back and fills my mouth with copper.
Pain steadies me.
Grounds me.
Reminds me that this isn’t my nightmare. It’s his.
He reaches down and comes up with a shard of broken glass from the fallen photo frame. He swings. It slices across my forearm, shallow but sharp enough to sting. That’s the moment I stop thinking about consequences. Because if he’s willing to use glass, I’m willing to use worse.
I tackle him to the floor, driving him down with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs. My forearm presses into his throat. He claws at my face, my shoulders, my neck. I tighten without remorse.
I can hear Dallen somewhere behind me. I can hear her father telling her to look away.
I can hear my own heartbeat pounding like war drums in my ears.
And beneath it all, another voice.
My father’s.
You finish them.
