Chapter 7
The ringing silence in the luxury boutique was profound. The bright, cinematic daylight pouring from the overhead fixtures highlighted the chaotic ruin of the illuminated designer-shoe display. Dozens of brightly colored shoes lay scattered across the pristine carpet, mocking the violent destruction of the man buried beneath them.
Grant Mercer groaned, a wet, rattling sound escaping his shattered jaw. Driven by the primal, desperate instinct to survive, the forty-two-year-old security man blindly reached out. His fair skin was smeared with his own blood as his hand grasped the edge of a broken acrylic shelf. Coughing violently, Grant slowly, agonizingly tried to push himself up from the floor, trying to rise to his knees amidst the scattered shoeboxes.
"Don't kill me... Boss, don't..." Grant wheezed, his American accent slurred and broken.
Damian Bellucci did not offer a word of mercy. The deeply masculine, unyielding aura of the Mafia Boss demanded absolute, catastrophic retribution for the attack on his daughter.
As Grant managed to lift his torso halfway off the ground, struggling to find his balance on his polished leather shoes, Damian moved.
He didn't wind up or telegraph his strike. With brutal, terrifying efficiency, Damian stepped forward and immediately drove a hard, devastating front kick directly into the center of Grant’s torso.
The heavy leather sole of Damian’s shoe connected flush with Grant’s ribcage. The sound of ribs snapping was audible over the ambient hum of the room's ventilation system. All the air detonated from Grant’s lungs in a violent, bloody spray.
The immense kinetic force of the kick lifted Grant entirely off his knees. He shot violently backward, his body sliding and skipping across the scattered shoeboxes and plush carpet like a skipped stone.
He hurtled backward until he slammed catastrophically into the massive, closed ballroom doors at the end of the hall.
The impact was thunderous. Grant hit the heavy wood so hard that both massive doors shook violently in their brass frames, rattling the surrounding walls. The sheer force of the collision arrested his momentum instantly, and Grant collapsed straight down into a crumpled, lifeless heap at the base of the doors.
He did not attempt to rise again. He lay completely still, his tailored dark suit covered in blood and dust, his luxury wristwatch cracked and sparking against the floorboards.
There was no dialogue. The violence had spoken with absolute, terrifying clarity.
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The white American guests, the wealthy elite who had moments ago been sipping champagne and laughing at a child's worn shoes, were now pressed tightly against the far walls. Their fair, rosy skin had turned a sickly, translucent white. They stared at the head of the Bellucci family in absolute, paralyzing fear.
Damian slowly lowered his leg. He adjusted the cuffs of his unbuttoned shirt, the artistic tattoos on his hands flexing as he relaxed his muscles. He had physically dismantled the threat, but the intellectual war was only just beginning. A senior security man did not attempt to assassinate the Boss's daughter without significant financial backing. Damian turned his cold, sharp eyes toward the bleeding man on the floor, ready to extract the truth.
