Chapter 7 - The Final Stand
“I couldn't just sit there!” Sadi shouted back, tears of adrenaline and terror finally spilling over her lashes as she gripped the lapels of his muddy jacket. “You walked into a war because of me! Because of my idiot brother! I wasn't going to wait around to see if you came back!”
Vincent stared down at her, his chest heaving, his jaw clenched so hard the muscle ticked violently.
For a second, she thought he was going to shake her. She thought the cold, calculating mob boss would finally snap at the sheer, reckless stupidity of what she had done.
Instead, Vincent let out a harsh, broken exhale, buried his face in the crook of her neck, and pulled her so tightly against his chest that she could feel the frantic, heavy rhythm of his heart.
“You’re an impossible woman, Sadi,” he whispered fiercely against her skin. “A complete, reckless, beautiful disaster.”
“Are we alive?” she breathed, her hands resting against his back.
“For now,” Vincent muttered, pulling back just enough to look into her eyes. “Jimmy is in the back office. Let’s go finish this.”
He grabbed her hand—his grip firm, warm, and utterly unshakeable—and led her through the labyrinth of crates toward the administrative office at the rear of the warehouse.
The door was kicked open.
Jimmy O’Connor sat slumped in an executive chair behind a scarred wooden desk, bleeding from a deep gash across his forehead, holding a handkerchief to his nose. Two of Vincent’s heavyset guards stood on either side of him like statues of vengeance.
When Vincent walked in with Sadi holding his hand, Jimmy looked up, his pale blue eyes wide with pure, unadulterated terror.
“V-Vincent,” Jimmy stammered, trying to stand before one of the guards shoved him back down into the chair with a heavy thud. “Look, we can talk about this. It was a misunderstanding. The debt was cleared, I swear—”
“The debt was cleared,” Vincent interrupted, his voice dropping into a lethal, quiet register that made the temperature in the room plummet. “And then you sent your cowards to my property to start a war.”
“I didn't—”
“Shut up, Jimmy,” Vincent said simply.
He stepped up to the desk, leaning down so his face was inches from O’Connor’s sweating forehead.
“Here are the new terms,” Vincent said, his voice smooth as glass and cold as ice. “You pack up your crew, you hand over the dock operations to my logistics firm by sunrise, and you leave this city permanently. If I ever see your face, or hear your name, or so much as catch a whisper of your shadow anywhere in this state... I won’t just break your knees, Jimmy. I’ll erase you.”
Jimmy nodded frantically, his face pale as chalk, unable to form words.
“Get him out of my sight,” Vincent ordered.
The two guards hauled Jimmy to his feet and dragged him out of the room, leaving Vincent and Sadi alone in the quiet office.
The storm outside still raged, but inside, the air felt strangely still.
Vincent turned slowly, looking down at Sadi. The anger had drained from his face, replaced by something deep, heavy, and raw.
“It’s over,” he said quietly.
Sadi let out a long, shuddering breath, feeling the last three days of terror finally drain out of her bones. She looked up at him, her heart swelling with a feeling she no longer tried to fight.
“And what about us?” she whispered.
May you like
Vincent reached out, his calloused thumb gently wiping a smudge of soot from her cheek.
“There was never any pretending, Sadi,” he said, his voice steady and absolute. “From the first moment you poured my coffee with shaking hands... you were mine.”
