Chapter 1 - The Blood on the Marble
Dr. Evans packed his surgical instruments with trembling hands.
He had spent two hours stitching the deep lacerations across Emma’s pale face.
I stood in the corner of the room and watched the steady rise and fall of her chest.
The white marble floor was still stained with her blood.
I ordered Marco to have the cleaning staff leave it exactly as it was.
I wanted to remember the cost of letting my enemies think I had grown soft.
Dr. Evans closed his medical bag and looked up at me with exhausted eyes.
He told me she would survive, but she needed absolute rest for the next several weeks.
I thanked him quietly and handed him an envelope filled with enough cash to ensure his silence.
Marco escorted the doctor out of the mansion and returned to my side a moment later.
He told me he had dispatched our best men to the city hospital to secure Emma’s mother and brother.
I nodded, staring at the family crest torn into Emma’s ruined uniform.
I told Marco we were going to find the men who did this before the sun came up.
We drove through the freezing rain toward the darkest corners of Brooklyn.
My informants had located a low-level Russian thug who frequently bragged about Kolov’s operations.
We found him drinking alone in the back booth of a dilapidated dive bar.
Marco shattered the man’s kneecap with a steel baton before he could even reach for his weapon.
I dragged the screaming thug out into the rainy alleyway and pressed my pistol against his forehead.
I asked him where Kolov was hiding.
The thug laughed through a mouth full of blood and broken teeth.
He told me I was asking the wrong questions.
He confessed that Kolov’s men were paid double to leave Emma alive.
They wanted her to serve as a Trojan horse to distract me from their real target.
My cell phone suddenly vibrated in my coat pocket.
It was my captain stationed at the city hospital.
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He choked on his own blood as he told me Kolov’s assassins had just slaughtered our entire security detail.
He took his final breath and whispered that Emma’s family was gone.
