Chapter 1 - Blood on the White Marble
The scent of seared truffles and high-end scotch in the Saltline dining room was instantly vaporized by the acrid, metallic tang of blood and gunpowder.
My shoulder felt as though it had been hollowed out by a branding iron. White-hot, pulsing agony radiated from the shattered joint, down my spine, and straight into my fingertips. Every breath I took felt like inhaling broken glass. My vision swam with dark, oily spots, but through the haze, I could feel the trembling weight of nineteen-year-old Cesily Colazo clutched tightly against my chest. She was weeping silently, her hands clutching at my stained waitress apron, her body shaking so violently I thought she might break.
"Don't look," I wheezed, my voice barely a thread of sound against her ear. "Just stay down. Keep your head down, Cesily."
"Mave... oh my God, you're bleeding," she whimpered, her voice cracking with a terror that no teenager should ever have to know. "He was going to kill me."
"I’ve got you," I whispered back, though my own body was betraying me, threatening to drag me into the comforting, painless dark of unconsciousness. I couldn't pass out. Not now. If I closed my eyes, who would protect Finn? My sweet, fragile nine-year-old brother, waiting for me in our damp, drafty apartment in South Boston, clutching his chest and praying that his older sister would bring home enough money to buy his next round of heart medication. I had to live. I had to stay awake.
Above us, the world had descended into a violent, deafening chaos.
Bang!
The muzzle flash of a heavy-caliber firearm illuminated the shattered glass of the restaurant's grand entryway. Rafe Colazo—the legendary, cold-eyed kingpin of the Boston underworld—didn't even flinch as a stray bullet pulverized a towering vase of white orchids just three feet to his left. He remained on one knee beside me, his tailored black suit jacket pulled back to reveal the sleek, lethal grip of a customized semi-automatic handgun.
His face was a terrifying mask of absolute, calculated rage. His gray eyes, hard as flint and twice as cold, locked onto mine for a fraction of a second. There was a flicker of something raw and unreadable in those eyes—shock, perhaps, or a rare spark of humanity—before he looked up toward the doors where three more armed men in tactical gear had just breached the shattered glass.
"S!" Rafe’s voice was a low, guttural roar that sliced through the screams of the fleeing elite. "Secure the perimeter. No survivors."
"On it," a woman's voice replied from the shadows.
S, the lethal, shadow-like bodyguard who had been standing behind Cesily's chair, was already a blur of motion. She had the first attacker—the one who had broken my shoulder with the iron rod—pinned to the floor with a knee driven deep into his spine. With a sickeningly efficient twist of her wrist, she disarmed him, took his weapon, and fired two precise shots into the chest of the second gunman advancing through the lobby.
The dining room of Saltline, usually reserved for politicians, old-money dynasties, and tech moguls, had become a slaughterhouse. Men and women in gowns and tuxedos scrambled over overturned tables, sliding on spilled champagne and blood as they desperately tried to reach the kitchen exits.
"Gerald!" I gasped out, my eyes scanning the room as I tried to find my manager. "The... the back hallway... they're coming from..."
But Gerald Moss, the tyrannical manager who had laughed in my face when I warned him about the suspicious waiter, was nowhere to be found. He had bolted at the first sign of trouble, leaving his staff and his wealthy patrons to die.
Suddenly, a third gunman broke through the service door near the kitchen—the very door I had walked through just minutes ago with a tray of oysters. He raised a submachine gun, his eyes locking onto Cesily’s bright blue silk dress.
"Die, Colazo scum!" he screamed.
I didn't think. I couldn't. With the last ounce of strength in my uninjured arm, I rolled over, putting my body over Cesily once more, bracing for the inevitable spray of bullets that would tear through my back.
But the shots never came.
Bang. Bang.
Rafe Colazo stood tall, his arm extended with terrifying stability. The heavy firearm in his hand spoke twice, the concussive force rattling my eardrums. The gunman near the kitchen kitchen froze, two neat, dark red holes appearing in the center of his forehead before he collapsed backward into a stack of silver serving trays. The clatter of metal echoed through the room like a mock applause.
Silence, heavy and suffocating, descended upon the restaurant, broken only by the low, agonizing groans of the wounded attacker pinned under S’s boot and the sound of my own ragged, desperate breathing.
Rafe didn't look at the bodies. He immediately holstered his weapon, dropped back to his knees, and reached for me. His large, calloused hands were surprisingly gentle as they slid under my head and my uninjured shoulder, lifting me slightly from the cold, blood-slicked marble.
"Keep your eyes open," he commanded. His voice was no longer a roar, but a low, intense frequency that demanded obedience. "Look at me, sweetheart. Stay with me."
"My brother..." I wheezed, a drop of blood escaping the corner of my mouth. "Finn... he's at home... he needs... he needs his medicine..."
"I don't care about anyone else right now," Rafe said, his gray eyes burning into mine with an intensity that made the pain in my shoulder briefly recede. "You saved my sister. You took a hit meant for a Colazo. Your brother will be taken care of. You will be taken care of. Do you hear me?"
"Promise me..." I whispered, my fingers weakly gripping his expensive lapel, staining the pristine fabric with my cheap, kitchen-grease-covered blood. "If I... if I don't make it... promise me Finn..."
"You are going to make it," Rafe growled, and for the first time, I saw a crack in his icy armor. He looked up, his voice rising to a sharp command. "S! Call the private medical team. Get the trauma van to the back entrance now! If she dies, everyone in this restaurant dies next."
May you like
As S scrambled to her phone, my vision began to fail entirely. The bright lights of the Saltline chandelier spun into a single, blinding streak of gold before dissolving into a deep, velvety black. The last thing I felt was the warmth of Rafe's hand pressing firmly against my neck, checking for a pulse, and his low, fierce whisper:
"Hold on, Mave. I've got you."
