Chapter 3 - Splintered Wood and Silence
The hallway on the third floor of the Astoria apartment building smelled of stale cigarette smoke, boiled cabbage, and damp carpet.
Dante didn’t knock.
He didn’t need to. The door to apartment 3B was already compromised, the wood around the deadbolt cracked and splintered where a heavy shoulder had slammed against it repeatedly. From inside came the muffled, venomous sound of a man’s voice—angry, slurred, and laced with the toxic entitlement of someone who believed his home was a kingdom where he held absolute power.
“Open the damn door, Emma! You think hiding in the bathroom makes you smart?” Marcus yelled, kicking the wooden panel of the bathroom door with a dull thud that made the drywall dust drift down like gray snow. “Open it before I take the hinges off with a crowbar!”
No answer came from inside. Only a sharp, stifled sob that was instantly swallowed by silence.
Dante motioned to Leo with a single, curt flick of his fingers. Leo stepped up beside the apartment door, raised his right boot, and delivered a devastating kick directly beside the cracked deadbolt.
The entire door frame exploded inward, the latch mechanism tearing out of the wall with a deafening crash that echoed down the narrow hallway.
Marcus spun around, his face flushed with alcohol and rage, a heavy metal wrench clutched in his right hand. “What the hell—?”
He didn't get to finish the sentence.
Dante crossed the threshold in two long strides, his expression a mask of cold, absolute indifference. Before Marcus could raise the wrench, Dante’s hand lashed out, catching him by the throat and slamming him backward against the living room wall with enough force to rattle the framed pictures off the hooks.
The wrench clattered uselessly onto the linoleum floor.
Marcus choked, his eyes bulging as his feet left the ground, his hands clawing frantically at Dante’s iron grip. “Who… who the hell are you?”
“You were looking for someone to break,” Dante said softly, his voice dropping into a register so chillingly quiet that it froze the air in the room. “It turns out you picked the wrong house to play the giant.”
“Let him go! Please, just let him go!”
Dante turned his head slightly.
Emerging from the shattered doorway of the bathroom was Emma. Her left arm was bound tightly against her ribs in a makeshift sling made from a torn dish towel. Her face was pale, a dark purple bruise swelling across her cheekbone, and her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and disbelief.
She looked smaller than she had at the restaurant—fragile, like dry autumn leaves ready to scatter in the wind. But she was standing. She had made the call.
May you like
Dante looked back at Marcus, whose face was turning a dangerous shade of blue. With a cold flick of his wrist, Dante dropped the contractor onto the floor like a sack of garbage. Marcus doubled over, coughing violently and gasping for air.
“Leo,” Dante said without looking back. “Pack a bag for Miss Vale. We’re leaving.”
