Chapter 8 - The Choice of a Father
The seconds ticked away in absolute, suffocating silence.
From upstairs, I could hear Lila's muffled crying—weak, terrified, calling out for her father. Daddy... please...
Every tactical instinct trained into me over twenty years of blood and territorial warfare whispered that I should hunt Silas down, that letting an enemy walk away was a cardinal sin that invited future ruin. But the man in the mirror wasn't a mafia boss anymore. He was a father whose seven-year-old daughter was sitting upstairs with poison in her veins.
With a low growl of pure fury, I opened my hand and let the Sig Sauer drop to the hardwood floor with a heavy clatter.
"You win," I bit out, my teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached. "Get out of my house."
Silas smiled, a dark, victorious expression in the dim ambient light. "I knew you were a sentimental fool at heart, Vincent. That's why you were always destined to fall."
He stepped backward through the service door, vanishing into the damp night air before I heard the muffled roar of a high-performance engine tearing down the gravel driveway.
I didn't waste a second looking after him. I dropped to my knees, scooped up my pistol, shoved it back into the holster, and vaulted up the stairs three at a time, ignoring the scream of my own muscles.
I hit the second-floor landing and sprinted down the corridor toward Lila's room. The door was cracked open, a sliver of pale moonlight cutting across the pink carpet.
I threw the door open, my gun raised, scanning every corner of the room.
Empty.
The windows were latched from the inside. The en-suite bathroom was clear.
In the center of the room, sitting upright in her white canopy bed, was Lila. Her small hands were clutched tightly around her stuffed rabbit, her tear-streaked face turned blindly toward the doorway.
"Daddy?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "Is that you? The bad man said he was going to make my eyes go completely black."
I crossed the room in two strides, falling to my knees beside her bed and gathering her small, fragile frame into my arms, burying my face in her golden hair.
"I'm here, sweetheart," I choked out, fighting the raw, burning sting behind my own eyelids. "Daddy's here. Nobody is ever going to hurt you again."
May you like
Then, resting on the bedside table right beside her half-empty glass of water, I spotted a small, folded piece of hotel stationery with neat, feminine handwriting scrawled across it in black ink.
---
