Chapter 7 - The Executioner’s Arrival
CRACK.
The thin wooden panel of the bathroom door splintered down the middle. A heavy leather boot kicked through the gap, shattering the cheap latch.
The fat man reached through the hole, unlocked the handle from the inside, and threw the door wide open.
Hazel squeezed her eyes shut, screaming as the man reached down, his heavy, dirty hand grabbing her tightly by the upper arm and hauling her up off the tile floor.
"Get up, girl!" he barked, shoving her roughly into the small living room. "Frankie wants to have a nice long chat with you about where a poor little maid gets sixty thousand dollars in clean wire transfers."
"Let go of me!" Hazel cried, struggling against his tight grip.
The thin man laughed, tossing her purse onto the sofa. "She's feisty. Frankie’s gonna love her."
Suddenly, the cold air from the hallway grew unnaturally still.
A slow, heavy set of footsteps echoed up the wooden stairwell outside the apartment. They were precise, deliberate, and heavy—the sound of an apex predator walking into a trap he had built himself.
The thin man frowned, turning toward the broken front entrance, his hand reaching under his leather jacket for his firearm. "Who the hell is—"
He never finished the sentence.
The broken front door was kicked off its hinges with catastrophic force, flying across the room and smashing the thin man squarely in the chest. He crashed backward against the wall, dropping his gun with a painful groan.
Standing in the shattered doorway was Damian Romano.
He wore a long, charcoal-gray cashmere overcoat over a dark tailored suit. His face was a mask of pure, unadulterated death, his gray eyes glowing with a terrifying, violent madness. Behind him stood Marco and four heavily armed tactical guards, their silenced automatic rifles raised and ready.
The fat man holding Hazel froze, his jaw dropping in utter disbelief. "R-Romano?"
Damian didn't say a word. He didn't issue a threat. He didn't ask a question.
He stepped into the apartment, moving with frightening speed despite his wrapped gunshot wound. Before the fat man could draw his weapon, Damian’s heavy, gloved hand shot out, wrapping around the man’s throat with lethal force.
Damian slammed the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound collector against the wall so hard the drywall cracked.
"You put your hands on her," Damian rasped, his voice dropping into a register so dark it made the hair on Hazel’s arms stand up.
"It—it was just business, Don Romano!" the fat man choked out, his face turning purple as his legs kicked uselessly against the floor. "Frankie sent us! We didn't know she was yours!"
"She is mine," Damian said flatly.
With a sickening CRACK, Damian tightened his grip, breaking the man’s jaw in one effortless motion before tossing his limp, unconscious body onto the floor like a sack of trash.
The thin man on the floor frantically reached for his dropped pistol.
Marco stepped forward, putting a heavy tactical boot over the man’s wrist, crushing it against the floorboards. "Don't even think about it, pal."
Damian turned away from the downed men as if they no longer existed.
His dark eyes found Hazel, who was standing trembling against the small kitchen counter, her face pale, her breathing fast and shallow.
In an instant, the violent monster vanished from Damian’s face. His expression softened into one of intense, anxious concern.
He walked over to her, stepping over the unconscious collector, and stopped inches away.
"Did they hurt you?" Damian asked, his voice surprisingly gentle, his hands hovering near her shoulders, checking her for injuries. "Hazel. Look at me. Did they touch you?"
"N-no," Hazel stammered, tears streaming down her face. "You... you came."
"I told you I would," Damian whispered.
Without thinking, driven by the sheer terror of the past ten minutes, Hazel threw her arms around Damian’s neck, burying her face into his chest.
Damian went rigid for a fraction of a second. Then, his heavy arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her tightly against his frame, shielding her completely from the violent scene in her apartment.
He buried his face in her soft hair, inhaling her vanilla scent, feeling his racing heart finally begin to slow down.
"Pack your things, Hazel," Damian commanded softly into her hair. "You're coming back to the estate."
Hazel looked up at him through her tears. "To... to clean?"
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Damian looked down into her eyes, his thumb gently wiping away a tear from her cheek.
"No," Damian said, his voice absolute and final. "You are never cleaning another floor in your life. You are staying with me."
