Chapter 3 - The Knock on the DoorThe heavy wooden door of the penthouse rattled under the force of an aggressive, repeated pounding from the hallway outside.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Open up in there!” Marcus Miller’s voice screamed through the reinforced mahogany, muffled but unmistakably unhinged. “I know my wife and my property are inside this suite! Open the damn door before I call the cops and have this entire building raided!”
I froze, the blood draining completely from my face. Hearing his voice after everything—after the blows, after the freezing pavement, after the terror of watching my newborns turn gray in my arms—sent a paralyzing wave of phantom pain rippling across my ribs.
Elias didn't flinch. He didn't blink. He stood immovable by the door, his hand resting casually yet deadlily on his concealed weapon, his dark eyes fixed on the entrance with the chilling focus of an apex predator waiting for a mouse to step out of its hole.
“Boss,” Tony murmured, stepping out from the shadows near the balcony with a suppressed submachine gun already appearing from beneath his jacket. “Do we want me to take care of him out in the hall? Make it look like a botched mugging?”
“No,” Elias replied, his voice dropping into that low, flat register that brooked zero argument. “Let him in. I want to look him in the eye.”
Tony nodded once, slid his weapon back out of sight, and strode over to the entryway. He threw the heavy deadbolt back and yanked the door open wide.
Marcus stumbled forward into the foyer, nearly tripping over his own expensive loafers. He was dressed in a flashy, unbuttoned designer suit, his hair slicked back with too much gel, his face flushed with a toxic cocktail of alcoholic bravado and sudden, frantic panic.
He expected to see cowering servants. He expected a terrified, bleeding wife begging to be taken back.
Instead, he found himself staring down the barrel of Tony’s imposing, six-foot-four frame, while behind him stood Elias Vance—the most feared name in the tristate area.
Marcus stopped dead in his tracks. The color drained from his face so fast it looked like someone had struck him with a wet towel. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, his eyes darting frantically between Tony, the luxurious expanse of the penthouse, and Elias standing by the bedroom threshold.
“V-Vance?” Marcus stammered, his bravado evaporating into thin air like morning mist. “Elias Vance? I… I didn't know this was your property. I was just looking for my wife, Ava, and my newborn children. They were… they were taken from my home.”
Elias didn't move. He walked slowly out of the bedroom, his tall, broad-shouldered frame casting a long, intimidating shadow across the imported marble floor. He stopped two feet away from Marcus, looking down at him with an expression of profound, sickening disgust.
“Your property?” Elias repeated, his voice dangerously soft.
“Yes—I mean, my family!” Marcus babbled, sweating profusely now, wiping his forehead with the back of a shaking hand. “She’s unstable! Postpartum psychosis! She wandered off into the snow with the babies, and some of my associates tracked her phone to this building. You have to hand them over, Mr. Vance. They’re my legal dependents.”
I pushed myself up from the bed, ignoring the tearing pain in my back, using the mahogany bedpost to steady myself. I grabbed a silk robe from the foot of the bed, wrapped it tightly around my shoulders, and walked unsteadily out of the bedroom into the hallway.
“I didn't wander off, Marcus,” I said, my voice ringing out clearly through the penthouse.
Marcus whipped his head around, his eyes locking onto me. For a second, relief flashed across his face, quickly replaced by pure, unadulterated fury when he saw I was alive, clean, and standing in a billionaire’s penthouse.
“You ungrateful little bitch!” Marcus snarled, lunging forward past Tony before the enforcer could grab him. “You caused all this trouble, embarrassing me in front of my investors, running off to play victim! Get your clothes on right now and get back to the car before I beat the remaining sense out of you!”
He raised his hand to strike me.
He never made contact.
In a blur of motion too fast to track, Elias crossed the distance between them. His heavy hand shot out, grabbing Marcus by the throat with bone-crushing force, lifting the grown man a full two inches off the marble floor.
Marcus choked out a strangled gasp, his hands clawing desperately at Elias’s wrist, his legs kicking wildly in the air.
“Touch her,” Elias whispered, his face inches from Marcus’s purple-tinged skin, his voice dripping with lethal ice, “and I will personally feed your fingers to the rats down by the docks before I throw what’s left of your body into the Hudson.”
“V-Vance… please…” Marcus wheezed, his eyes bulging as oxygen vanished from his lungs.
Elias held him suspended for three endless seconds, letting the absolute terror of mortality sink deep into Marcus’s marrow. Then, with a disgusted flick of his wrist, Elias threw Marcus hard against the entryway wall.
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Marcus crashed down onto the marble, coughing, gasping, and clutching his bruised throat.
“You came here demanding your property, Mr. Miller,” Elias said, smoothing down the cuffs of his sweater as if he had just brushed off a speck of dust. “Let’s talk about property. And let’s talk about what you owe.”
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