Chapter 4 - The Touch That Heals
Leo stepped forward with a tactical blade, his own eyes wide with shock at the sight of his boss weeping on the concrete floor.
In fifteen years of violent street wars, Leo had never seen Gabriel Rossi shed a single tear.
Not when his father was buried, and not when he took three bullets to the lung during the Manhattan turf disputes.
"Boss," Leo said gently, offering the hilt of the knife. "Let me cut the ropes."
Gabriel snatched the knife, his fingers steadying with sudden, fierce focus.
He sliced through the rough nylon cords in two precise, feather-light strokes, immediately catching Meline’s limp arms as they fell free.
The moment she was released, Meline collapsed forward against his chest, her strength completely spent.
Gabriel wrapped his arms around her with desperate, suffocating tenderness, pulling her whole body against his broad torso.
He stripped off his heavy cashmere overcoat with one arm, wrapping the warm wool around her shivering shoulders until she was completely swaddled.
"Can you stand, little bird?" he whispered softly, his voice trembling against her temple.
"My head hurts, Gabriel," she whimpered, burying her face into the crook of his warm neck, breathing in his familiar scent of sandalwood and rain.
"I know. I've got you. I've got you now."
He slid his left arm beneath her knees and scooped her up into his arms as easily as if she were made of dried reeds.
He stood up, holding her close against his heart, and turned his dark gaze toward the corner of the room.
Sullivan was kneeling on the floor, held down by two Rossi guards, whimpering through tears of pain and terror.
When Sullivan saw Gabriel holding the girl, the gambler's face drained of every drop of color.
"Rossi... please," Sullivan begged, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth.
"I didn't know she was yours! Thomas said she was nobody! He said she had no protection!"
Gabriel paused beside the trembling man.
The tears on Gabriel's face had dried, leaving behind a cold, terrifying stillness that was infinitely more frightening than his grief.
"She was never nobody, Victor," Gabriel said, each word dropping like an iron weight into the tomb of the warehouse.
"She was the only thing in this city worth saving."
He looked at Leo.
"Take his hands," Gabriel ordered quietly.
"The hands that touched her face. Leave him at the harbor steps so every loan shark from here to Boston understands what happens when someone touches Meline Foster."
"Understood, Boss," Leo replied, nodding to his men.
May you like
Gabriel didn't look back as Sullivan began to scream.
He carried Meline out of the burning warehouse and into the soft, quiet rain, stepping into the back of his armored Maybach where a private medical team was already waiting with warm blankets and sterile gauze.
