Chapter 5 - The Gala of Wolves
Within forty minutes, the headlights of three black SUVs cut through the heavy rain outside the auto shop.
Through the cracked, grimy glass of the second-floor office where Vincent had hidden me, I watched the shadows assemble. Men in heavy tactical coats, armed with suppressed submachine guns, moved with military precision across the muddy gravel lot.
Leading them was none other than my brother, Tyler.
My breath trapped in my throat. My own blood, the boy I had raised after our mother died, the man who had sold me for fifty dollars to cover a poker debt, was walking point for the Castiglione hit squad.
"Check the perimeter!" Tyler’s voice drifted up, muffled by the rain. He sounded nervous, twitchy, fueled by cheap cocaine and desperate greed. "Marcus said the boss is crippled! He can't hear a damn thing, and he's bleeding from the skull! Two hundred grand to the guy who puts the bullet in his forehead! Just don't damage the girl—Marcus wants to use her as the scapegoat!"
Tears of pure, burning betrayal pricked my eyes. I gripped the cold iron railing of the office walkway. I had spent five years working double shifts as a maid, scrubbing the filth of strangers' bathrooms, skipping meals so Tyler could pay off his loan sharks. And here he was, directing killers to butcher the only man who had ever offered me safety.
Suddenly, a warm, solid chest pressed against my back.
Vincent’s arm wrapped securely around my waist, pulling me gently away from the window. In his right hand, he held a black, suppressed automatic rifle. His face was entirely devoid of fear. His eyes were cold, calculating, and predatory.
He tapped my shoulder. When I looked at him, he pointed toward the secondary exit—a fire escape that led down into the drainage canal behind the shop.
I shook my head violently. I grabbed his forearm, looking him dead in the eyes, and mouthed: *No. Together.*
Vincent stared at me, his gaze searing into mine. A profound, unreadable emotion crossed his features—admiration, shock, and a fierce, possessive warmth.
He reached into his tactical vest, pulled out a compact 9mm pistol, checked the chamber with a crisp metallic slide, and placed it into my trembling hands. He closed my fingers around the grip, guiding my index finger alongside the frame, away from the trigger.
He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear.
"Breathe," he whispered.
The word was rough, cracked, and completely out of practice. But it was real.
He had spoken directly to me.
Before I could recover from the shock, the lower doors of the warehouse were kicked open with a thunderous splinter of wood.
The hitmen moved inside, their flashlight beams slicing through the dusty, shadow-draped cavern of the repair bay.
Vincent didn't wait to be cornered.
He dropped from the internal mezzanine with impossible silence, landing on the hood of a suspended chassis fifteen feet below. Before the men could register the movement, Vincent’s rifle spat three muffled coughs of lead.
Two men crumpled instantly, their flashlights clattering across the oily concrete.
Chaos erupted.
Suppressed gunfire tore through the warehouse, rounds pinging off engine blocks and shattering windshields. Tyler screamed in terror, scrambling behind a rusted hydraulic lift. "He's alive! He's armed! Shoot him! Shoot him!"
Vincent moved through the shadows like a wraith.
For five years, his enemies had believed him half-blinded by agony and sensory deprivation. But stripped of the frequency jammer that had been burning his auditory nerve, Vincent wasn't just healthy—he was an apex predator unleashed. Every instinct honed over fifteen years of gang warfare exploded into lethal execution.
He flanked the intruders through the vehicle inspection trenches, striking from angles they couldn't predict. He neutralized two more gunners with terrifying, ruthless efficiency—one with a close-range double tap, the second with a combat knife to the femoral artery.
Then, the warehouse went dead silent.
Only Tyler remained, whimpering behind the hydraulic lift, his cheap snub-nosed revolver shaking violently in his clammy hands.
"V-Vincent?" Tyler stammered into the darkness. "Listen, man... it was Marcus! Marcus set it all up! He said you were a vegetable! He said you'd die in a week anyway! I'm your brother-in-law! Clara! Clara, tell him! You owe me, Clara!"
I stepped out onto the iron mezzanine above, looking down into the pit.
The cold barrel of the 9mm felt heavy in my hand, but my heart had turned to stone.
"I don't owe you anything, Tyler," I called down, my voice ringing clear and steady through the cavernous space. "I paid my debt with my life. And you sold it for fifty dollars."
Tyler looked up, his face twisted in desperate rage. He raised his revolver, aiming directly at my chest. "You ungrateful little b—"
A shadow rose behind him.
Vincent materialized from the darkness like a ghost of vengeance. He caught Tyler’s wrist, twisting the bone with a sickening *crack*.
Tyler shrieked, the revolver falling from his limp fingers. Vincent didn't stop. He hooked his foot behind Tyler’s knee, slamming my brother face-first onto the grease-stained concrete, then planted his heavy combat boot squarely on the back of Tyler’s neck.
Vincent looked up at me from across the expanse of the warehouse.
The gun in his hand was lowered. His eyes asked the only question that mattered:
May you like
*Do you want him dead?*
***
