Chapter 6 - The Scar
The quiet in the safe house was broken only by the crackle of the dying fire.
Claire sat rigid on the sofa, her arms wrapped tightly around Leo, her mind reeling from the weight of Vincent’s words.
Five years of hatred. Five years of telling herself that he was a monster who had discarded her like trash. And all along, he had been standing in a room full of guns, choosing to sacrifice his own heart to keep a bullet from reaching hers.
"It doesn't change anything," Claire whispered, though her voice lacked the cold certainty it had carried two hours ago. "It doesn't change the life you live, Vincent. Look at where we are right now! We are hiding in a concrete bunker because men are trying to kill you!"
"They are trying to kill me," Vincent corrected quietly, sitting down on the edge of the low coffee table across from her. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, bringing his face close to hers. "They don't care about a painter and her son in Bainbridge. They only care because I came here."
"Then why did you come?" Claire demanded, tears spilling over her lashes again. "Why couldn't you just let us be? You found out about him—why couldn't you stay in New York?!"
Vincent looked down at the sleeping boy. Slowly, hesitatingly, as if asking permission from the universe, he reached out his hand and touched the hem of Leo's blue blanket.
"Because I am his father," Vincent said simply. "And because I have spent five years dying, Claire. Every single day."
Leo shifted in his sleep, turning his face toward the firelight.
In the warm glow, the fine white line beneath his jaw seemed to stand out starkly against his soft, rounded skin.
Vincent’s thumb moved closer, hovering a millimeter above the mark. "How did he get it?"
Claire swallowed hard, wiping her cheeks with the back of her sweater sleeve. "He was two. He was trying to climb the lower shelf of my easel to reach my oil paints. The heavy oak frame tipped over. A sharp corner caught his jaw."
Vincent let out a long, ragged breath. "He was climbing to reach something he shouldn't have."
"Yes."
"Just like me," Vincent whispered, a faint, bitter smile touching his lips. "I was seven. My uncle left a pocket knife on the kitchen table in Brooklyn. I wanted to see how the blade snapped open."
He raised his hand to his own neck, tracing the jagged scar that ran from his earlobe down to his collarbone.
"My mother whipped me for two hours after the doctor stitched it," Vincent recalled, his eyes distant, lost in memories he rarely opened. "She said a boy with a marked face was marked for trouble. She said the world would always see the scar before they saw the man."
"I tried to hide it," Claire admitted softly, her voice breaking. "When he was little... I used to comb his hair down over his jaw so people wouldn't notice. I was so terrified someone from New York would see him and know."
Vincent looked up from the child’s face, his obsidian eyes locking onto hers with an intensity that made her breath catch in her throat.
"You can't hide what he is, Claire," Vincent said gently. "He is a Caruso. He has my blood, my scar, and your heart. That makes him dangerous to my enemies... but it also makes him the only thing in this world I will burn cities to protect."
Before Claire could answer, the soft, amber light of the living room was suddenly cut short.
The overhead lamps flickered twice and died.
The roaring fire threw long, dancing shadows across the high concrete walls.
From the hallway outside, the quiet, distinctive click of Marco’s radio cut through the dark.
"Boss," Marco’s voice came through the small speaker, sharp and devoid of panic. "The perimeter sensors on the north road just went down. We have four vehicles approaching without lights."
Vincent didn't flinch. He didn't curse.
He stood up from the coffee table in a single, fluid motion, pulling a heavy, dark semi-automatic pistol from a hidden holster inside his wool sweater.
He racked the slide with a crisp, terrifying clack that made Claire’s blood run cold.
"Take him into the back room," Vincent said, his voice instantly transforming into the cold, lethal command of the man who ruled New York's underworld. "Behind the bookcase. There is a steel panic door. Lock it from the inside."
"Vincent—" Claire reached for his hand, panic instantly driving out every lingering shred of anger.
May you like
Vincent grabbed her hand, bringing her fingers to his lips, pressing a hard, fierce kiss against her knuckles.
"Twelve hours, Claire," he whispered into her skin, his eyes burning in the dark. "I promised you twelve hours. I'm going to finish this war right now so I can give them to you."
