Chapter 2 - The Threshold of Violence
The frost bit sharply into the soles of my Italian leather shoes as I crossed the overgrown gravel yard. The house looked entirely ordinary from the outside—peeling white paint, a sagging wooden porch, and overgrown hydrangea bushes lining the pathway. But beneath that suburban facade, I could feel the heavy, suffocating scent of fresh violence.
The front door was ajar, hanging off its hinges by a single splintered screw, gaping open like a fresh wound.
I didn't draw my gun. Drawing a firearm was loud, messy, and drew unwanted attention. Instead, I reached inside my coat and wrapped my fingers around the cold, textured grip of my heavy steel knuckle-dusters, sliding them seamlessly over my fingers.
I stepped across the threshold, and the breath caught in my throat.
The living room looked less like a home and more like the aftermath of an artillery strike. Upholstered chairs were overturned, their stuffing spilling out onto the floor like entrails. A coffee table had been smashed completely in half, jagged splinters of wood scattered across a stained rug. Shards of glass from a shattered picture frame glinted maliciously under the faint moonlight pouring through the front window.
And there, sprawled awkwardly across the hardwood floor near the hallway, lay a woman.
Sarah Peterson.
Her face was bruised beyond immediate recognition, her clothes torn, and a dark, sticky pool of blood was slowly spreading from the back of her head, soaking into the threadbare rug.
I dropped to one knee, ignoring the glass crunching beneath my trousers, and pressed two fingers firmly against the side of her neck.
Pulse. Rapid, erratic, and dangerously weak.
She was barely hanging on, drifting on the razor-thin edge between life and death.
Before I could pull out my phone to summon my private medical team—men who asked no questions and patched up my inner circle in total secrecy—a heavy, booming voice thundered down the narrow staircase leading to the second floor.
“Come out, you little ungrateful brat! You think hiding under a bed is going to save you?”
Heavy, drunken footsteps echoed heavily overhead, stomping violently against the floorboards like a stampede of cattle. The sheer malice in the voice made my blood run instantly cold.
Then, he appeared at the top of the stairs.
He was a mountain of a man—easily six-foot-four, with a thick, unkempt beard, bloodshot eyes bulging with manic fury, and knuckles stained dark with fresh blood. He wore a stained flannel shirt that clung tightly to his massive, sweat-slicked chest, and in his right hand, he loosely dragged a heavy, iron-headed fireplace poker.
He paused on the landing, blinking heavily against the dim light, before fixing his bleary, bloodshot eyes directly on me.
For a second, he looked confused. Then, a slow, ugly sneer twisted his thick lips.
“Who the hell are you?” he slurred, taking a slow, heavy step downward. “How’d you get in my house? Are you one of Sarah’s boyfriends? Well, you’re just in time to watch me finish cleaning house.”
I didn't answer. I didn't waste breath on scum.
I stood up slowly, my six-foot-two frame uncoiling like a steel spring. The darkness that I had kept locked away for decades—the dark entity that the Boston underworld feared more than death itself—surfaced in my eyes.
The man laughed, a harsh, grating sound, and raised the heavy iron poker. “You got a death wish, pal—”
He never finished the sentence.
I closed the distance between us in the blink of an eye. Years of street fighting, elite close-quarters combat training, and pure, unfiltered rage turned me into a blur of kinetic violence. As he swung the poker in a wild, looping arc aimed straight at my skull, I ducked effortlessly inside his reach.
My fist, reinforced by solid steel, drove upward with bone-shattering force, landing squarely beneath his sternum.
The impact sounded like a baseball bat hitting a side of beef. The man’s eyes widened comically, all the air exploding out of his lungs in a violent, wet gasp. His knees buckled instantly, his momentum completely obliterated.
Before he could even hit the floor, I grabbed him by the collar of his flannel shirt, spun him around, and drove him flat onto his back with a deafening crash that shook the entire staircase.
I straddled his chest, pinning his massive arms to the floor with my knees, and brought my hand down hard around his thick, pulsing throat, crushing his windpipe until his face turned a violent, alarming shade of purple.
“I’m only asking once,” I said, my voice dropping into a chilling, dead calm that carried more terror than a screaming tyrant. “Where is the little girl?”
His hands clawed frantically at my wrists, his fingernails scratching uselessly against my skin as he choked for air, his eyes bulging wildly.
“I—I don’t know—” he wheezed, saliva spraying from his lips.
“Wrong answer,” I whispered, tightening my grip just enough to bring him to the absolute brink of unconsciousness. The veins in his temples throbbed violently against his skin.
“Emma Peterson! Eight years old! Where is she hiding?”
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Before he could manage another gasping lie, a tiny, terrified sound echoed down from the dark hallway upstairs.
“Matt? Is that you?”
