Chapter 8 - The Wrath of the Silent
Dominic did not get out of the car.
Salvatore Marquetti did.
He didn't carry an iron bar. He didn't carry a gun. He wore a heavy black wool overcoat that flared behind him like the wings of a dark angel as he stepped into the rain. His face was carved from the darkest stone of the Alps—dead, frozen, and vibrating with an ancient, terrifying fury that sucked the air straight out of the alley.
Dante stepped out of the driver's side, a heavy semi-automatic shotgun held loosely across his chest, his finger resting flat against the trigger guard.
Brett’s two hired thugs took one look at the two men, dropped their metal pipes onto the wet concrete with a frantic clatter, raised their hands above their heads, and pressed their backs flat against the brick wall, trembling like cornered dogs.
Brett stood alone in the center of the alley, frozen in the glare of the headlights, the tire iron dangling from his limp fingers like a useless toy. The wet bravado drained from his face so fast he looked like a corpse standing upright.
"M-Marquetti..." Brett stammered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably as the rain plastered his thin hair to his forehead. "Wait... listen to me... it was just a joke—we were just scaring her—"
Salvatore walked toward him.
He didn't run. He walked with the heavy, unhurried stride of an executioner who had all the time in the world.
When he reached Brett, Salvatore didn't pause to sign. He didn't write a note.
With blinding, terrifying speed, Salvatore’s left hand shot out like an iron piston, his long fingers clamping around Brett’s throat with bone-crushing force. He lifted the younger man off the wet asphalt with one arm, slamming his back hard against the rough brick wall.
The tire iron fell from Brett’s hand, clattering harmlessly into a puddle. Brett’s feet kicked frantically six inches above the ground, his fingernails clawing uselessly at Salvatore’s wrist, his face turning an alarming, mottled purple as his windpipe was choked shut.
Salvatore leaned in close.
His dark eyes bored into Brett’s bulging pupils with a lethal, absolute intimacy. For three long, suffocating seconds, the only sound in the alley was the steady hiss of the rain and Brett’s choked, whistling gasps for air.
Then, Salvatore slowly raised his right hand.
He did not strike him. He brought his fingers to his own lips, tapped them once, and then pointed a single, rigid index finger directly at Brett’s forehead.
Silence.
Salvatore released his grip.
Brett crashed onto the wet asphalt in a pathetic, wheezing heap, coughing violently, vomiting sour wine onto his knees, clutching his bruised throat with both hands.
Salvatore didn't look down at him again. He turned his back on the broken man, dismissing his existence entirely, and walked straight toward where Tessa was standing against the brick wall.
Dante stepped forward, gesturing with the barrel of his shotgun toward the street. "Move," Dante told the two thugs. "Take that garbage with you. If any of you are within three counties of Chicago by midnight, I will personally feed you to the carp at the bottom of the Calumet River."
The two men dragged a sobbing, gasping Brett down the alley and vanished into the rain.
Salvatore stopped two feet in front of Tessa.
His hands rose in the blinding white glare of the headlights, moving with a sharp, trembling urgency that made her heart ache:
Are you hurt? Did he touch you?
Tessa looked at his wide, terrified eyes—the eyes of a man who had conquered a city but was terrified of losing a single light in the dark.
Slowly, she lifted her own hands, letting the rain wash over her knuckles:
I’m not hurt, she signed softly. Because you heard me.
Salvatore stopped breathing.
May you like
He reached out, his bare, rain-soaked fingers gently cupping the curve of her jaw, his thumb brushing a stray, wet lock of dark hair from her forehead.
He didn't sign. He simply pulled her forward, wrapping his massive, wool-clad arms around her shoulders, burying his face into the hollow of her neck, holding her so tightly against his chest that she could feel the thunderous, frantic beat of his heart through the layers of wet wool and linen.
