Chapter 4 - The Price of Loyalty
The sudden violence of the knocks made me jump so hard my knee cracked against the coffee table. The wooden chair wedged beneath the doorknob shuddered as someone slammed their heavy boot against the lower panel.
""Maya! Open the damn door!""
The voice belonged to Hector Gutierrez, my slumlord. He sounded furious, his words slurred slightly with the cheap morning whiskey he was notorious for drinking before checking his properties.
""I know you're in there, girl!"" Hector bellowed, rattling the metal knob violently. ""It's the first of the month! Seven hundred dollars, cash in hand, or your crap is going on the sidewalk before noon! I've got two guys waiting downstairs with a flatbed!""
On the sofa, Dante's eyes snapped open. Despite the massive blood loss and the fever clearly burning behind his brow, the lethality in his gaze returned instantly. His right hand dropped instinctively to the floor where his weapon rested against the carpet. He began to sit up, his muscles straining against the tight tape, his jaw clenched tight against the pain.
I scrambled to my feet and placed a firm, trembling hand against his uninjured shoulder, pushing him back down. ""Don't move. You'll tear the stitches we don't even have.""
""He's threatening you,"" Dante whispered, his voice dangerously low, like a tiger growling from the back of a cage.
""He's my landlord,"" I whispered back frantically. ""He's an awful man, but he's not an assassin. If he sees you bleeding on my couch with a gun, he'll call the cops in five seconds. Stay down. Please.""
Dante stared at me for a long beat, his gray eyes reading every flicker of panic on my face. Slowly, he released his grip on the weapon and rested his head against the stained cushion, though his body remained wound tight like a coiled spring.
I wiped the sweat and blood from my forehead with the sleeve of my hoodie, took a deep breath, and walked to the door. I pulled the chair away and unlocked the top deadbolt, opening the door only four inches, keeping the heavy safety chain latched.
Hector stood in the dim hallway, his stained wife-beater shirt stretched over an enormous beer gut, a half-lit cigar stub clenched between his yellowed teeth. Behind him stood two burly men in dirty coveralls, holding empty plastic moving crates.
""About time,"" Hector sneered, blowing a cloud of foul-smelling smoke directly into my face. ""Where's the money, Maya? I gave you an extra week after your old man kicked the bucket. My generosity ends today.""
""Hector, please,"" I pleaded, keeping my body angled to block the view of the living room behind me. ""I worked a double shift last night. My paycheck clears on Friday. Just give me seventy-two hours. That's all I need. I've lived here for four years and never missed a payment until my dad got sick.""
""I don't give a damn about your dead dad,"" Hector barked, spitting on the hallway floor. He grabbed the edge of the door, trying to force it open further, but the safety chain pulled taut with a sharp rattle. ""This isn't a charity. You don't have the cash? Then take your purse and get out. These boys are clearing the apartment right now.""
Hector slammed his beefy shoulder against the door, intending to snap the thin brass chain.
Suddenly, from the shadows behind me, a cold, aristocratic voice cut through the air like a razor blade.
""If your shoulder touches that wood again, I will personally ensure you spend the rest of your miserable life eating through a plastic tube.""
Hector froze. His eyes widened, peering past my shoulder into the dim apartment.
Dante had stood up. He stood tall, towering over six feet two inches, the ruined, blood-soaked shirt hanging open across his broad, heavily tattooed chest. Even pale as a ghost and leaning slightly against the wall for balance, he looked like an apex predator that had just woken up hungry. The sheer, overwhelming aura of money, violence, and aristocratic authority rolling off him sucked the air out of the hallway.
Hector took an involuntary step back, his cigar stub almost dropping from his lips. The two movers behind him exchanged uneasy glances and immediately set the plastic crates on the floor.
""Who... who the hell are you?"" Hector stammered, his bravado evaporating like mist under a blowtorch.
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""I am the man who is going to buy this entire building tomorrow just to watch it burn to the ground,"" Dante said softly, his voice devoid of any emotion. ""Now, turn around, walk down those stairs, and do not return until you are summoned. If you knock on this door again, Maya won't be the one answering.""
Hector looked from Dante's terrifying gray eyes down to the dark blood seeping through the white bandages on his ribs. He swallowed hard, completely intimidated. Without another word, Hector turned on his heel and hurried down the stairs, his two movers scrambling frantically after him.
