Chapter 3 - The Bloodline's Shame
The man who descended the stairs next was not Marco with the bolt cutters. It was Michael.
He was younger than Julian, perhaps late twenties, with the same sharp jawline and dark hair, but his features were soft, ruined by a lifetime of privilege and cowardice. He was wearing a silk button-down shirt that was now stained with plaster dust, and his hands were shaking so violently he could barely keep them inside his pockets. Two of Julian’s tactical guards walked right behind him, their barrels pressed firmly against his shoulder blades.
"Julian, please," Michael stammered, his eyes darting toward me for a fraction of a second before moving away in profound shame. "You don't understand. She... she saw something she shouldn't have. At the hospital. She was a liability to the family."
Julian didn't answer with words. In a movement so fast my eyes could barely track it, his fist connected with Michael’s jaw. The impact was an ugly, wet sound. Michael spun around and crashed into the wooden stairs, his nose instantly erupting in bright crimson blood. He groaned, clutching his face as he curled on the steps.
"A liability?" Julian hissed, stepping over his brother, his leather boot coming down on Michael’s chest, pinning him to the wood with effortless, terrifying strength.
"You chained a woman to a concrete floor for three months in the basement of a residential home, Michael? A Rossi does not hide his victims like a pathetic, sniveling rodent. We are the heads of the Chicago syndicate, not common street sadists. You did this in my city. Under my name."
"She’s a nurse!" Michael choked out, blood spilling over his lips. "She was on duty the night the Albanian courier was brought into the ER. She saw the ledger we took from his coat. She knew we killed him, Julian! If the feds got to her—"
"Then you handle it with a payout, or you relocate her across the Atlantic!" Julian roared, his voice shaking the foundation. He pressed his boot deeper into Michael’s chest until the younger brother gasped for air.
"You do not turn a basement into a torture chamber. Look at her, Michael. Look at what you did to her."
Michael didn't look. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, weeping openly from the pain and the sheer terror of his older brother’s wrath.
A large, burly man with a shaved head and a tactical vest rushed down the stairs, carrying a massive pair of steel bolt cutters. "Boss," Marco said, his eyes widening slightly as he took in the scene. He didn't waste time asking questions. He dropped to his knees by my ankle, carefully positioning the heavy jaws of the tool over the thick iron padlock that secured the chain.
"Hold still, ma'am," Marco said gently. "This is going to make some noise."
I gripped the pipe along the wall, bracing myself. With a sharp, metallic snap, the lock shattered, the heavy chain falling away from the iron cuff. But the metal ring was still embedded in my swollen, infected skin.
Julian bypassed his brother entirely, stepping down into the dirt beside me. Without asking, he slid his arms beneath my back and knees, lifting me into his chest as if I weighed nothing at all. The sudden change from the cold floor to the warmth of his body made my head spin, my vision blurring at the edges as the adrenaline began to leave my system.
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"I’ve got you," Julian whispered into my hair. He pulled my head against his shoulder, his dark overcoat shielding my face from the harsh light of the stairs as he carried me upward, away from the concrete, away from the dark, and into a world I had forgotten existed.
As we crossed the threshold into the upper house, the stench of iron and gunpowder was heavy. Three dead bodies in tactical gear lay crumpled in the hallway, the marble floor stained with dark pools of blood. Julian didn't even pause. He walked through the shattered remnants of the front door and out into the cold, pouring October rain, where a fleet of black armored SUVs sat waiting with their engines rumbling.
