Chapter 2 - Cold Reckoning
Dante didn’t draw a weapon; he didn’t need to. He caught the attacker’s wrist mid-swing, snapping the joint downward with a sickening pop that echoed over the waves. The knife clattered onto the wet wood. In the same fluid motion, Dante drove an elbow into the man’s sternum, sending him crashing backward into the tide.
The other two hesitated, staring wide-eyed at the living myth of the city’s underworld.
“Run,” Dante whispered.
They scrambled into the fog, dragging their groaning leader with them. Victor lingered near the edge, his sidearm lowered, scanning the darkness to secure the perimeter.
Dante dropped to his knees in the wet sand beside Elena. Her breathing was ragged, her lips pale from hypothermia and shock. As Dante gently lifted her head, her hazel eyes fluttered open, glassy with pain yet filled with immediate recognition.
“Dante…” she breathed, coughing faintly. “You… you shouldn’t be here.”
“I’m right where I belong,” he answered softly, shrugging off his heavy tailored jacket and wrapping it snugly around her shivering frame. “Mia came to find me. She barged straight into L’Aura like a miniature warrior.”
Elena turned weakly toward the pier steps, where Mia stood clutching Victor’s pant leg. When the little girl saw her mother moving, she broke into a sprint, sliding onto the wet boards to bury her face into Elena’s neck.
“Mommy! You’re alive!” Mia sobbed, trembling uncontrollably.
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“I’m here, baby… I’m here,” Elena whispered, kissing Mia’s hair through tears.
Dante watched them, feeling an unfamiliar ache hollow out his chest. For years, his life had been forged in concrete, contracts, and bloodshed. Yet looking at this battered mother and child, he realized power was hollow if you had nothing worth bleeding for.
