Chapter 5 - The Glass Falls
The penthouse erupted into absolute chaos.
Leo lunged forward, slamming his shoulder into Marco’s chest and knocking the suppressed pistol out of his grip. The weapon skittered across the polished floorboards, sliding straight toward my feet.
Arthur Kensington made a desperate break for the foyer doors, frantically pounding on the electronic keypad.
Victoria lunged toward the desk like a rabid animal, her manicured nails clawing for the laptop to smash it against the floor. Before she could touch the keyboard, I stepped forward, grabbed her wrist, twisted it using the defensive leverage my father had taught me years ago, and slammed her face-down onto the glass table.
""Don't touch the evidence,"" I whispered fiercely into her ear as she screamed in agony.
Across the room, Vincent moved with the terrifying speed of an apex predator. He didn't even draw his firearm. He closed the distance between himself and Leo in three long strides, grabbing his former security chief by the collar and driving his fist into Leo’s jaw with bone-shattering force.
Leo hit the ground hard, blood spraying from his split lip, but rolled quickly, reaching for a backup snub-nosed revolver concealed in his ankle holster.
""Vincent, look out!"" I yelled, reaching down, snatching Marco’s dropped gun from the floor, and racking the slide with a crisp, practiced snap.
I raised the weapon with both hands, steadying my trembling arms, and pulled the trigger.
Pfft!
The suppressed round took Leo clean through his right shoulder just as he leveled his revolver. The weapon flew from his fingers as he collapsed against the glass terrace door, groaning and clutching his bleeding shoulder.
Vincent didn't miss a beat. He stepped forward, placed his heavy boot on Leo’s chest, and pinned him to the floor. Vincent looked back at me, his eyes wide with a mix of shock and fierce, intoxicating pride.
""Remind me never to get on your bad side, Miss Abbott,"" Vincent remarked with a dangerous, breathless chuckle.
Marco quickly recovered, drawing zip-ties from his tactical vest and securing Arthur Kensington’s hands behind his back. The elderly billionaire was weeping openly, all his aristocratic arrogance shattered into pathetic whimpers.
Vincent leaned down, grabbing Leo by the hair and forcing his face upward. ""You took three million dollars from Arthur Kensington. You murdered an innocent accountant who worked for this city. And you forced his brilliant daughter to scrub floors under the threat of murdering her sister. Give me one reason why I shouldn't throw you off this balcony right now.""
""You... you can't touch us, Vincent,"" Leo gasped, coughing up crimson foam. ""Dmitri... Dmitri already has three hit squads mobilized. If we don't send the green-light signal by midnight, they aren't waiting for the wedding. They're launching an all-out assault on your warehouses, your family compounds, and this penthouse. You’re already a dead man walking.""
Vincent glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner of the study.
It was 11:15 PM. We had forty-five minutes before the entire Russian Bratva unleashed hell on the streets of Chicago.
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Vincent let Leo’s head drop back to the floor with a dull thud. He stood up, turning to face Marco and me.
""We aren't going to wait for them to attack,"" Vincent said, his voice dropping into the terrifying cadence of a general preparing for war. ""We're going to use Victoria's phone to walk Dmitri’s entire army directly into an ambush.""
