Chapter 6 - The Broken Crown
The room erupted in violence before Silas could even raise the iron crowbar.
Marco’s silenced pistol spat three rapid coughs of fire. The three thugs behind Silas collapsed instantly, clutching shattered kneecaps and screaming in agony as blood seeped into the ragged carpet. They writhed like worms, unable to draw their concealed weapons.
Silas lunged forward with a roar, swinging the crowbar toward Gabriel’s temple with lethal intent.
Gabriel didn't flinch. He leaned back half an inch, letting the cold iron whistle through empty air, then stepped inside Silas’s guard. His left forearm slammed into Silas’s throat, crushing his windpipe, while his right hand drove an open palm directly into the brute’s nose with the force of a hydraulic press.
Cartilage cracked. Silas stumbled backward, blood gushing from his face, droping the crowbar with a clatter.
"Wait—Vance—you can't touch me! Carroway will—"
Gabriel seized Silas by the throat, hoisting the two-hundred-pound man off his feet and slamming his back against the peeling wall. The sheetrock groaned under the impact.
"Did you touch the child?" Gabriel asked, his voice deathly soft, devoid of all human warmth.
"She... she was in the way!" Silas choked out, clawing desperately at Gabriel’s iron grip. "Sterling paid five grand to scrub the building! Said they had no lease!"
Gabriel drew the heavy utility knife from his belt. "She has a receipt. Seventy-seven days of sweat. Signed in hunger."
Gabriel pressed the flat of the cold steel blade against Silas's mouth.
"Which tooth was gold?" Gabriel murmured.
Silas’s eyes bulged with pure, suffocating terror. He tried to shake his head, but Gabriel’s grip pinned his skull against the stud in the wall.
"Open," Gabriel commanded.
With a swift, sickening twist of the blade, Gabriel pried the gold tooth loose from the man's jaw. Silas shrieked through a mouth full of crimson foam, slumping to his knees as Gabriel released his collar.
Gabriel tossed the bloody gold tooth onto the floor next to the shattered dinner bowl. "Payment for the broken door."
He turned his back on the whimpering enforcer and knelt down beside Elena Miller.
Elena was barely conscious, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. Her sunken cheeks showed the true toll of giving every crumb of bread to her daughter. Her hand, blistered and rough from chemical floor strippers, reached out weakly, brushing against Gabriel’s sleeve.
"Mia..." she breathed, tears cutting clean tracks through the dust on her face. "Where... where is my baby?"
"She is safe, Elena," Gabriel said, his voice instantly shedding its brutality, replaced by a deep, reverent gentleness. He slipped his warm cashmere coat over her shivering frame. "She found me. The contract is settled."
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Outside in the alleyway, tires screeched on the wet asphalt. A loud car door slammed, followed by the unmistakable sound of pump-action shotguns being chambered.
Marco peered through the grime-covered window and cursed under his breath. "Boss... Carroway's personal guard just pulled up. Twelve men. And they’ve surrounded the Maybach."
