Chapter 4 - The Fire on Pier 4
The storm had turned into a full-scale deluge by two in the morning.
I couldn't sit still in the library. I paced the floor of the master bedroom, my hands cold, my heart hammering a chaotic rhythm against my ribs. Every flash of lightning outside the window felt like a warning; every rumble of thunder sounded like distant gunfire.
At 2:45 AM, the lights in the house flickered twice, then died completely.
The room was plunged into pitch-black darkness, save for the pale, ghostly moonlight filtering through the rain-streaked windows.
Downstairs, the sharp, distinct sound of glass shattering echoed through the vast floorboards of the foyer.
I froze in the middle of the room, my breath catching in my throat.
The security system.
A sudden, muted pop-pop-pop of suppressed gunfire echoed from the front gardens, followed by the heavy thud of bodies falling against the wet stone porch.
Nico’s men weren't guarding the estate anymore. They had been taken out.
My survival instincts, buried under ten days of peace, erupted back to life with terrifying clarity. I didn't scream. I didn't run to the window. I moved silently across the dark room, grabbed a heavy brass fireplace poker from the hearth, and stepped behind the thick velvet drapes near the adjoining study door.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside the bedroom. Slow, heavy, dragging steps.
The brass doorknob turned.
The heavy oak door swung open with a creak.
A tall figure stepped into the pale moonlight of the bedroom. He held a silenced pistol in his right hand, a flashlight in his left, the beam scanning the empty bed, the sofa, the open bathroom door.
"Nora..." a voice rasped from the darkness.
It was a voice I knew better than my own name. A voice that had haunted every nightmare I had ever possessed.
Edmund Ashford stepped further into the room.
He looked horrific. His expensive clothes were gone, replaced by a filthy, rain-soaked tactical jacket stolen from a Moretti guard. His face was gaunt, his eyes bloodshot, manic, and wild with pure, unadulterated madness.
"I know you're in here, you ungrateful little bitch!" Edmund snarled, sweeping the flashlight beam across the walls. "Did you think your mafia prince was going to save you? He's dead at the pier! Victor Moretti blew his convoy to pieces twenty minutes ago!"
My heart stopped. No. No, Nico...
"You destroyed me!" Edmund screamed, his voice cracking with insane rage as he kicked a small side table, sending a glass vase shattering across the floor. "You gave him my trust fund! You signed my life away to that animal! I raised you! I gave you everything! And you threw me to the wolves!"
He walked closer to the window, his back turning to the heavy velvet drapes where I stood hidden in the dark.
"When I find you," Edmund whispered, racking the slide of his pistol with a metallic click, "I'm going to take you to the docks. I'm going to make you sign those trust papers in your own blood before I toss you into the river where you belong."
He took two steps toward the bathroom.
I didn't hesitate. I didn't think about fear, or pain, or the ten years of beatings I had suffered under his hands.
I stepped out from behind the drapes, raised the heavy brass fireplace poker with both hands, and brought it down with every ounce of strength I possessed straight across the side of my father’s head.
CRACK.
Edmund shrieked in pain as the heavy brass struck his temple, knocking the flashlight from his grip and sending him crashing sideways into the coffee table. The pistol flew out of his hand, skidding across the hardwood floor into the shadows.
He scrambled on his hands and knees, blood streaming down his face, his eyes wild with rage as he looked up at me standing over him in the moonlight.
"You..." Edmund gasped, reaching for his boot where a hunting knife was strapped. "You miserable little monster!"
He lunged up at me, pulling the long steel blade from his boot.
I dodged sideways, but the tip of the blade caught the sleeve of my robe, slicing through the fabric and grazing my forearm. Pain flared hot along my skin, but I barely felt it.
I swung the brass poker again, aiming for his arm. He blocked it with his left forearm, screaming as the bone cracked, but his momentum carried him forward, tackling me hard to the floor.
The brass poker flew from my hands.
Edmund pinned me to the hardwood floor, his left hand gripping my throat, squeezing with terrifying, familiar force, while his right hand raised the gleaming hunting knife above my chest.
"You were always worthless!" Edmund spat, blood dripping from his forehead onto my cheek as he brought the knife down toward my throat. "Just like your mother!"
I grabbed his wrist with both hands, using every shred of strength left in my body to hold the point of the blade inches from my neck. My vision began to spot with black dots as his grip on my throat tightened.
"Die..." Edmund wheezed, pressing his weight down onto the knife. "Just die!"
The blade slid an inch closer. Three inches from my pulse. Two inches.
BANG.
A deafening explosion shattered the quiet room.
Edmund’s body jerked violently. The terrifying light in his eyes instantly went out, replaced by a dull, blank stare.
A red stain exploded across the front of his tactical jacket.
He collapsed sideways onto the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut, the heavy hunting knife clattering uselessly against the wood.
I scrambled backward against the base of the bed, gasping frantically for air, clutching my throat, my chest heaving as I looked toward the open bedroom doorway.
Standing in the threshold, illuminated by the pale moonlight and the smoke rising from his heavy automatic pistol, was Nico Ferrara.
His coat was torn, his left shoulder bleeding from a graze, his dark hair soaked with rain and sweat. But he was alive.
He dropped the gun, rushed across the room, and fell to his knees beside me, pulling me into his arms with a force that almost knocked the breath out of me again.
"Nora," Nico breathed, his voice shaking violently as he buried his face in my hair, holding me so tightly I could feel the wild, erratic thumping of his heart against my chest. "Nora... God, Nora..."
I wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face in his blood-stained lapel, and for the first time in my life, I sobbed—not out of fear, not out of pain, but out of pure, unadulterated relief.
"He said... he said you were dead," I wept against his chest.
"He lied," Nico whispered, his hands trembling as he checked my face, my throat, my bloody arm. "Moretti is gone. His men are gone. It's over, Nora. It’s finally over."
I looked over his shoulder at the still, lifeless form of Edmund Ashford lying on the floor in the moonlight. The monster who had terrorized my entire life was gone. He could never touch me again. He could never hurt another human being.
Nico gently lifted me into his arms, carrying me away from the blood on the floor, stepping out into the quiet hallway where Sal and ten Ferrara enforcers were securing the house.
"Get a doctor here now!" Nico ordered Sal as he carried me down the stairs. "And clear that room!"
"Right away, Boss," Sal said, bowing his head in deep respect as we passed.
Nico carried me down to the living room, setting me down gently on the soft velvet sofa near the newly lit fireplace. He grabbed a clean white cloth from the side table, dipped it in warm water, and gently began wiping the rain and blood from my face.
I looked up at his handsome, dark face, seeing the fierce, uncompromising devotion in his eyes—a devotion that had fought through an army of men to reach me.
"You came back," I whispered softly.
May you like
Nico stopped his hands, looking deep into my eyes, his thumb gently tracing my lower lip.
"I promised you, Nora," Nico said, his voice dropping into a soft, beautiful whisper. "I will always come back for you."
