"A Waitressss Finds the Mafia Boss’s Daughter Unconscious

The rooftop helipad was lashed by howling coastal winds. Below them, sirens waked the city as police cruisers and emergency vehicles converged on the high-rise, entirely too late to intervene in the shadow war between titans.

A sleek, twin-engine corporate helicopter sat waiting on the pad, its rotors already beginning to spin with a deafening, rhythmic roar. The pilot gave Vincent a thumbs-up through the cockpit glass.

"Get them aboard!" Vincent shouted over the roar of the blades, pushing Elena and Marco toward the open cabin door.

Marco placed Mia inside, and Elena instantly wrapped her arms around the child, pulling her into the safety of the reinforced cabin.

Clara turned to climb the metal steps, but Vincent didn't follow. He stood on the tarmac, his gun reloaded, his eyes fixed on the metal roof-access door that was bulging outward under the pressure of incoming hostiles.

Clara stopped on the runner. "Vincent! What are you doing? Get inside!"

"Volkov is leading this team himself," Vincent shouted back, the wind whipping his dark hair across his forehead. "If he sees this chopper lift off, his ground teams have anti-materiel rifles stationed on the neighboring cranes. He will shoot the aircraft out of the sky before you clear the harbor!"

"You can't fight an entire hit squad alone!" Clara yelled, stepping back off the helicopter onto the freezing roof.

"Clara, get back on the aircraft!" Vincent bellowed, panic cracking his voice for the first time. "Protect my daughter!"

"I promised to keep her safe, and that includes making sure she doesn't grow up an orphan!" Clara shouted back fiercely. "Marco! Give me a sidearm!"

Before Marco could react, the heavy steel roof door blew outward with a deafening screech of torn metal.

Viktor Volkov—a towering, scarred monster of a man with a cybernetic eyepatch and a heavy machine gun—stepped onto the roof, flanked by four remaining elite killers.

"Moretti!" Volkov’s gravelly voice boomed over the wind and rotor wash. "Running like a dog with your pup?"

Vincent pushed Clara violently behind the landing gear of the helicopter. "Stay down!"

Gunfire erupted across the open rooftop. Vincent fired with superhuman precision, dropping two of Volkov’s men in seconds, but the sheer volume of suppressing fire from Volkov's machine gun chewed through the concrete pad, forcing Vincent into cover behind an air-conditioning unit.

A stray bullet struck the helicopter’s tail rotor housing, sending sparks flying and causing the aircraft to shudder violently.

"We have to lift off now, Don Moretti!" the pilot screamed through the intercom headset. "The hydraulic line is nicked! We have sixty seconds before the tail loses stability!"

"Go!" Vincent roared from behind the AC unit. "Marco, take them and go!"

"No!" Mia’s terrified scream pierced the storm. "DADDY!"

Volkov was advancing on Vincent’s position, laying down continuous heavy fire, cutting off any escape route. Vincent’s gun clicked empty. The slide locked back.

Volkov grinned, raising his weapon for the execution. "End of the line, Moretti. Your empire is mine."

From beneath the belly of the shuddering helicopter, Clara saw an emergency fire extinguisher mounted to the roof maintenance rack. Without a second thought, she wrenched it free from its bracket.

She didn't have a gun. She didn't have armor. But she had absolute, blinding fury.

Clara sprinted from behind the helicopter, hauling the heavy red cylinder, and hurled it with all her strength directly at Volkov’s feet.

"Vincent! Shoot the valve!" Clara screamed.

Vincent reacted on pure instinct. He whipped a backup snub-nosed revolver from his ankle holster, aimed blindly around the corner of the concrete block, and pulled the trigger.

*CRACK.*

The bullet struck the compressed gas cylinder dead center. The tank exploded in a deafening, concussive blast of white chemical powder and shrapnel.

Volkov was blown off his feet by the shockwave, his machine gun flying out of his hands and skidding over the edge of the roof into the abyss below. The blast threw Clara backward onto the hard concrete, scraping her arms and knocking the breath from her lungs.

Vincent was on his feet in an instant. He didn't look at Volkov. He didn't look at the helicopter. He bolted straight to Clara, dropping to his knees and pulling her head into his lap.

"Clara! Clara, look at me!" Vincent’s hands were shaking violently as he cupped her face, wiping white chemical dust from her skin.

Clara gasped for air, coughing, but her eyes locked onto his. "Did... did we get him?"

Behind them, a bloody, dazed Volkov staggered to his feet, pulling a serrated combat knife from his belt with a feral roar.

Vincent didn't even turn his head. Without breaking eye contact with Clara, he raised his revolver with his left hand and fired twice over his shoulder.

Volkov collapsed backward, falling fifty stories down into the foggy depths of the city.

Silence fell over the roof, broken only by the steady, laboring thrum of the damaged helicopter blades.

Vincent looked down at Clara, his gray eyes shining with unshed tears. He leaned down, his forehead pressing against hers, his voice breaking into a ragged whisper.