“That’s better,” Victor said, breathing hard. “Now you’re starting to understand who really runs this town.” He adjusted the gold chain at his neck, already imagining how he’d make an example out of the soldier once he had him tied up.
But Victor had overlooked the one thing that separated a street extortionist from a trained infantryman. Mike Collins did not surrender. Dropping to one knee had simply put him in the perfect launching position. His boots were planted firmly on the slick floor, ready to convert every ounce of stored energy into motion.
He gave Annie one quick look—full of love, full of promise—and in that instant he knew this would be the most important fight of his life. The spring inside him had been compressed as far as it could go.
Then he exploded forward.
He moved with a speed no one in that kitchen expected from a man who had just crossed half the country. His body worked like a machine. The distance between him and Victor disappeared before the crime boss’s finger could tighten on the trigger.
Mike’s left hand clamped onto Victor’s wrist and twisted it sharply. The black pistol dropped from his hand and skidded harmlessly across the blood-slick linoleum. At the same time, Mike drove his right elbow hard into Victor’s jaw.
The blow landed with brutal precision. Victor’s head snapped sideways, and his heavy body crashed down into the remains of the Easter bread scattered across the floor. The gold chain that had looked so impressive a minute earlier slid crookedly across his bloodied face.
But Mike wasn’t finished. The threat to his family had to be ended completely.
He stepped in and planted one mud-caked combat boot squarely on Victor’s chest, pinning him to the floor. Under the pressure, ribs creaked, and the man let out a thin, miserable sound.
At that moment, the skinny thug with the broken arm made a desperate reach for the fallen pistol with his good hand. Mike caught the movement in his peripheral vision and answered with a hard kick to the man’s midsection. The thug folded up and cried out, all fight gone from him.
The balance of power in the kitchen had shifted completely. The men who had come in swaggering now lay broken and groaning on the floor. Victor Kane, choking on blood and panic, tried uselessly to push Mike’s boot off his chest.
“Please,” he gasped. “We’ll give it back. We’ll leave. We won’t come back.”
The pleading in his voice stirred nothing in Mike but disgust. He bent down slightly and looked straight into the man’s terrified eyes.
“You came into my home on a holy day,” Mike said quietly, “and threatened my wife and little girl while I was out there protecting people like you from a real enemy.”
Each word landed with the weight of a sentence already passed.
“If I ever hear your name anywhere near my family again, I will find you. And I won’t need a weapon.”
To make sure the message landed, Mike pressed down just a little harder with his boot. Victor wheezed and nodded as much as he could. Justice in that kitchen came fast, hard, and final. The suffocating sense of danger began, at last, to lift…
