Chapter 5 - The Hunt in the Rose Garden
The fog in the greenhouse garden was thick enough to chew.
Rain poured down in heavy, cold sheets, plastering Vincent’s hair to his forehead as he burst through the shattered glass doors of the conservatory. The smell of wet earth, crushed roses, and copper filled his senses.
Fifty yards ahead, through the mist, a voice yelled out.
"Move it! Get the kid in the trunk! The boss wants us at the docks in ten minutes!"
Sophia’s sharp, terrified cry pierced the rain. "Let me go! Mama! MAMA!"
"Shut her up!" another voice barked.
Vincent didn't run into the open.
He moved like a phantom through the overgrown stone pathways of Clara’s garden—pathways he knew by heart, every stone, every curve, every iron bench etched into his memory from twenty years of walking them with his late wife.
He slipped behind a high stone wall covered in climbing yellow rose vines, flanking the two men from the side.
There were three of them.
Two mercenaries dressed in black tactical gear holding heavy pistols, and a tall, thin man with a jagged scar across his lip—Jimmy 'The Hook' Valenti, Sal Valenti’s younger brother and chief enforcer.
Jimmy was dragging Sophia by her cardigan arm toward the idling SUV.
Vincent raised his Sig Sauer.
Thwip.
The mercenary standing near the SUV dropped without a sound, a red hole blooming in the center of his chest.
"What the—" the second mercenary yelled, spinning around, raising his assault rifle.
Thwip. Thwip.
Two rounds caught the mercenary in the throat and chest. He stumbled backward, crashing into the iron frame of the greenhouse, shattering three glass panels before slumping onto the wet gravel.
Jimmy Valenti froze.
He violently yanked Sophia in front of his body, pressing the barrel of a chrome-plated revolver directly against the seven-year-old girl’s temple.
"Show yourself, Moretti!" Jimmy screamed into the fog, his voice high-pitched with frantic terror. "Show yourself or I blow this little brat’s brains all over the roses!"
The fog parted.
Vincent Moretti stepped out from behind the rose wall.
He didn't look like a businessman anymore. He looked like an ancient spirit of vengeance, his clothes soaked through with rain, his face illuminated by the distant red emergency strobes of the estate, his eyes completely hollow of human mercy.
He stopped ten feet from Jimmy.
He didn't raise his gun. He let his arm hang at his side.
"You came into my home, Jimmy," Vincent said, his voice chillingly calm, vibrating through the cold night rain. "You touched something under my protection."
"Don't come any closer!" Jimmy shrieked, pressing the barrel harder against Sophia’s head. Sophia was crying silently, tears streaming down her pale cheeks, her little hands clutching the purple crayon still stuck in her cardigan pocket. "I swear to God, Moretti, I’ll pull the trigger! Sal wants you dead! If I bring him your head, he makes me a captain!"
"Sal is a dead man walking," Vincent said simply. He took one step forward. "And so are you."
"I said stop!" Jimmy screamed.
In that fraction of a second, Sophia did something no adult would have dared to do.
She reached into her pocket, pulled out the heavy purple crayon, and slammed the blunt wax tip with all her strength directly into Jimmy Valenti’s eye.
"Aaargh!" Jimmy shrieked, his grip slipping as he instinctively recoiled, clutching his face.
BANG.
The gun discharged harmlessly into the air.
In the same breath, Vincent closed the distance between them.
He grabbed Jimmy’s gun wrist, twisting it with enough violent force to shatter the arm bones like dry twigs. Jimmy let out a blood-curdling scream as the chrome revolver clattered onto the muddy stone.
Vincent pulled Sophia behind his back with his left arm, shielding her completely.
With his right hand, Vincent slammed Jimmy Valenti against the stone wall of the greenhouse, his thick fingers wrapping around the enforcer's throat, lifting the grown man three inches off the ground.
Jimmy thrashed, his legs kicking wildly, his eyes wide with bulging terror as he stared down into the face of Vincent Moretti.
"Please..." Jimmy choked out, blood dripping from his nose. "Vincent... please..."
Vincent leaned close, his dark face inches from Jimmy’s twitching ear.
"Tell Sal," Vincent whispered, his voice smooth as silk and cold as death, "that I am coming for him tonight."
Vincent drove his fist into Jimmy’s jaw, knocking the enforcer unconscious instantly. He dropped the limp body onto the muddy gravel like garbage.
Vincent immediately turned around and dropped to his knees in the pouring rain.
He pulled Sophia into his arms, wrapping his broad coat around her tiny, shivering frame.
Sophia buried her face in Vincent’s wet shoulder, her small arms wrapping tight around his neck, sobbing uncontrollably.
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"I got you," Vincent whispered, his voice cracking, tears mixing with the rain on his cheeks as he held the child tight against his heart. "I got you, little one. You're safe. You're safe."
For the first time in four years, the darkness in Vincent Moretti’s heart didn't feel so absolute.
