Chapter 7 - The Fire in the Back Alley
The sleet had turned to a dense, blinding mist by the time the town careened around the corner of Hanover Street and slammed to a halt in the narrow alley behind Hayes Restoration.
The back door of the antique shop was wide open.
A yellow streak of incandescent light cut across the slippery wet asphalt, spilling out from the dimly lit workshop where antique clocks ticked in erratic, overlapping rhythms.
“Stay behind me,” Dominic ordered, his hand sliding inside his charcoal coat with a dull metallic click that Nora knew too well.
“Don’t treat me like a spectator,” Nora hissed, stepping past him into the damp chill of the doorway before he could block her path.
The workshop smelled of turpentine, old varnish, and wood smoke.
At the far end of the room, near the heavy cast-iron safe tucked into the brick foundation beneath the stairs, Grant Harrison was on his knees. His designer coat was splattered with mud, his hair plastered across his forehead, and his hands—usually so clean and precise over architectural blueprints—were frantically stuffing thick sheaves of parchment and old leather-bound ledgers into a black canvas duffel bag.
“Grant,” Nora said.
The man froze.
Slowly, deliberately, Grant turned his head over his shoulder. The panic in his eyes was absolute, stripped of all corporate polish and arrogant charm. But when he saw Dominic standing in the doorway behind her, his expression twisted into a mask of pure, venomous hatred.
“You,” Grant snarled, scrambling to his feet with the duffel bag clutched in his fist. “You ruined everything. Three years of groundwork, gone because you couldn’t keep your bloody hands off my fiancée.”
“She was never your fiancée, Harrison,” Dominic said, his voice dangerously calm as he advanced into the room like a panther closing on a cornered hare. “She was an asset you miscalculated.”
“Shut up!” Grant screamed, his hand diving into the pocket of his coat.
Before Dominic could blink, a heavy, nickel-plated Smith & Wesson revolver flashed into the dim workshop light. Grant’s arm shook violently as he leveled the barrel straight at Nora’s chest.
“Move one inch closer, Russo, and I swear to God I’ll put a hole through her heart before your men can even reach the alley,” Grant shrieked, spittle flying from his lips. “You think you own this city? You think you can just step in and rewrite everyone’s ledger? I built the entire financial framework for the harbor expansion! I made you millions!”
Nora stared at the gun barrel. It looked impossibly large, black and cold against the background of her grandfather’s repaired sideboards.
“You didn’t build anything, Grant,” Nora said, her voice remarkably steady. “You just stole other people’s foundations.”
“I’ll kill her,” Grant sobbed, his finger tightening convulsively against the trigger guard. “I swear I’ll—”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
From the shadows near the staircase, a heavy, brass-headed carpenter’s mallet came whistling through the air with the speed of a falling guillotine.
Crack.
The mallet struck Grant square across the right wrist with a sickening sound of splintering bone.
The revolver dropped from his nerveless fingers, clattering loudly against the wide oak floorboards.
Grant let out a high-pitched, animal scream of agony, clutching his shattered wrist to his chest as he dropped heavily to his knees.
From behind the staircase, a frail, stoed figure emerged into the light, wearing a flannel pajama top, thick wool socks, and an old leather carpenter’s apron.
May you like
Arthur Hayes lowered the heavy mallet slowly to the floor, breathing heavily through his nose as he glared down at the whimpering architect.
“Too much noise,” the old man muttered, wiping a speck of dust from his glasses with the corner of his apron. “A man can’t even get a decent night’s sleep with all this shouting about ledgers and guns.”
