Chapter 5 - The Shattered Mirror
Back in apartment 4B, the air was thick with the scent of cheap perfume and domestic dread. The glass had shattered into a hundred small silver rivers, reflecting Marisol’s distorted face as she knelt on the carpet, her hands instinctively shielding the tiny, secret life growing inside her stomach.
Hurt me all you want, she whispered to the floor. Just don't touch my baby.
Dean froze. For one second, he heard something over his own heavy breathing—a faint, rhythmic sound in the hallway outside that sounded suspiciously like heavy tactical boots stepping in unison.
It wasn't her imagination.
The heavy oak door of apartment 4B didn't just open; it exploded inward. Splinters rained across the living room carpet like wooden confetti as the frame gave way under a singular, devastating kick. Afternoon light from the hallway poured in around the silhouette of a man the entire boardwalk crossed the street to avoid.
Dean stumbled back, his face draining of all color. "Who the hell—? This is private property! I'll call the police!"
Matteo Cortese stepped over the splintered threshold. He wasn't holding a weapon. He didn't need one. His amber eyes swept the room in a fraction of a second—taking in the broken mirror, the overturned stool, and finally, Marisol kneeling on the floor with her arms wrapped around her abdomen.
Then his gaze shifted to Dean Ashford.
"The police," Matteo said softly, stepping closer, "won't answer your calls today, Mr. Ashford. They're currently counting the impounded shipping containers I bought off your associates down at the pier."
Dean swallowed hard, his hands trembling as he tried to maintain a facade of bravado. "Listen, you don't understand. She's my wife. What happens in this house—"
"Is none of my business," Matteo finished for him, his voice dangerously smooth. He stopped two feet away from Dean, towering over him by half a head. "That’s what I used to tell myself when I was a boy listening through a wall in Palermo. I promised myself I would never say those words again."
Before Dean could react, Matteo’s hand shot out with terrifying speed. He grabbed Dean by the collar of his designer shirt, lifting the smaller man off his feet with one arm as if he weighed nothing at all.
"You raised a hand to a woman who was carrying life," Matteo whispered, his face inches from Dean’s bulging eyes. "You turned a sanctuary into a prison."
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With a casual flick of his wrist, Matteo hurled Dean across the room. Dean crashed through a cheap wooden coffee table, wood snapping like dry twigs, before collapsing into a motionless heap on the floor.
Matteo didn't look at him again. He turned slowly, walking toward the kneeling woman in the corner of the ruined room.
