Chapter 2 - The Eight Minutes

What I didn't hear on the radio was the exact nature of Mark’s final moments. But years later, Dante told me the story of what happened in that penthouse suite.

When Vincent kicked down the mahogany doors of the VIP suite, Alberto Falcone was already dead on the floor, taken out by the initial breach. Mark was cowering in the corner behind a plush velvet sofa, clutching a bottle of expensive champagne like a shield, weeping hysterically.

His left arm and right leg were already in heavy plaster casts—the lingering result of his first encounter with Vincent's men at the warehouse before he was kidnapped.

Vincent walked slowly across the blood-soaked carpet, his rifle lowered. He didn't shoot Mark. Shooting him would have been too easy. Too quick.

"Please!" Mark sobbed, trying to crawl backward, dragging his broken leg across the floor. "I didn't tell them everything! I swear! I'll leave the country! You can have her! Just let me go!"

Vincent stood over him, a towering monolith of cold, dark justice.

"You don't get to offer her to me, Mark," Vincent said, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper. "She doesn't belong to you. She never did. You had an angel in your house, and you treated her like garbage because you are a small, weak, pathetic excuse for a man."

Vincent reached down and grabbed Mark by the collar of his shirt, lifting him effortlessly with one arm despite the heavy casts. He dragged him toward the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the glittering lights of the boardwalk.

"She begged you for mercy," Vincent said softly. "She hid in a bathroom and begged for her life while you broke her bones. Did you show her mercy?"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Mark screamed, the glass of the window cool against his back.

"Apology rejected," Vincent whispered.

With one brutal shove, Vincent shattered the reinforced glass.

Mark didn't even have time to scream as he fell forty stories into the dark abyss of the Atlantic Ocean below, erased from the world as violently as he had lived in it.

When Vincent returned to the estate just before dawn, he was covered in dust, sweat, and the blood of his enemies. I was waiting for him in the grand foyer.

He stopped a few feet away from me, suddenly looking unsure, as if afraid that the violence of the night had permanently stained him in my eyes. He started to unbuckle his tactical vest, looking down at the floor.

"I'm sorry you had to be dragged into this life, Lena," he said roughly. "I know I'm a monster. I know what I am."

I didn't let him finish. I walked forward, ignoring the grime and the blood, and threw my arms around his neck. I pulled him down and kissed him with everything I had—all my gratitude, all my love, all my newfound strength pouring into him.

He froze for a second, then his massive arms wrapped around my waist, lifting me off the ground as he kissed me back, burying his face in the crook of my neck and breathing me in like oxygen.