Chapter 4 - The Broken Glass
Larkin didn't turn around quickly. He moved with agonizing slowness, stepping slightly to the side to shield my body with his broad frame, his hand sliding smoothly into the left pocket of his trousers.
"Thomas," Larkin said, his voice dropping to a temperature that rivaled the Hudson river below. "You're drunk. Take your friends, get into a town car, and go home before you say something you can't survive."
Thomas laughed, but the sound was thin, ragged, and edged with panic. He looked at the two Marcone enforcers beside him—two hulking brutes in identical charcoal overcoats with flat, dead eyes.
"You think you run everything, don't you, Larkin?" Thomas spat, waving his tumbler of bourbon through the freezing air. "You sit in your glass office looking down at the rest of us like we're bugs! You think you're untouchable because you have the books, you have the ledgers! Well, guess what? Marcone offered me forty percent of the docks. All I had to do was give him the override codes to your private vault."
My stomach dropped. The private vault on the forty-second floor didn't just hold bearer bonds; it contained the physical encrypted hard drives detailing every corrupt official on the syndicate's payroll. If Marcone got his hands on those, Larkin wouldn't just lose his business—he would spend the rest of his life in ADX Florence or end up at the bottom of the East River.
"You don't have the override codes, Thomas," Larkin said coldly. "Only two people have access to that key."
Thomas sneered, his gaze flicking from Larkin directly to me. "I don't need the codes. Marcone’s tech guys are already inside the building. They just need the retinal scan and the biometric password from the administrator."
He pointed a shaking finger at my face.
"Her," Thomas snapped. "She set up the server migration last spring. She holds the master key."
The two Marcone enforcers stepped forward, their hands moving inside their heavy coats.
"Step aside, Steves," the larger of the two men said, his voice flat. "Marcone just wants the girl for an hour. Once she opens the gate, you can have her back. Or whatever's left of her."
What happened next lasted less than four seconds.
Larkin didn't reach for a gun. Instead, his hand whipped out from his pocket, gripping a heavy crystal tumbler he had palmed from the balcony ledge. In a single explosive motion, he shattered the heavy glass against the stone balustrade and drove the jagged base straight into the throat of the lead enforcer.
The man let out a wet, gurgling wheeze, his hands flying to his torn neck as arterial blood sprayed across the white marble floor.
The second enforcer lunged, clearing leather with a snub-nosed revolver, but Larkin had already grabbed the dying man's collar, using the deadweight of his body as a human shield. Two muffled gunshots thudded into the dying enforcer's chest.
"Larkin!" I shouted.
I didn't cower. I didn't scream. My Treasury training, buried under three years of quiet spreadsheet entry, took over with cold, terrifying instinct.
I whipped off Larkin’s heavy wool jacket, twisted it between my hands, and threw the heavy fabric directly over the remaining gunman’s head and gun arm, blinding him. The man cursed, flailing wildly as the wool tangled around his sights.
Before he could pull the trigger again, the steel tip of my four-inch stiletto heel drove into the side of his knee with the full force of my body weight.
Bone shattered with a sickening, wet snap.
The enforcer roared in agony, his leg collapsing beneath him as he crashed to the wet stone. Larkin was on him in an instant. With cold, mechanical efficiency, Larkin grabbed the man's head with both hands, twisted sharply to the left until a loud crack echoed over the sound of the wind, and let the limp body drop.
Silence slammed back down onto the terrace, broken only by the panting of our breath and the wet dripping of blood onto the snow.
Thomas was pressed flat against the glass French doors, his face drained of all color, his trousers visibly wet. The drink had slipped from his hand, shattering on the ground between his shoes.
"L-Larkin..." Thomas sobbed, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. "Please. It was just business. They said they wouldn't hurt you—"
Larkin stood up. Blood was smeared across his sharp jawline and the pristine white bib of his tuxedo shirt. He wiped his hands on a linen handkerchief with horrifying calm, his eyes fixed on his cousin.
"You brought wolves to my door, Thomas," Larkin whispered. "And you threatened my property."
"I'm your cousin! Your own blood!"
"Blood is cheap," Larkin said. He stepped forward, grabbing Thomas by the throat with one hand, lifting him until his polished shoes dangled inches above the floor. "Penelope is irreplaceable."
Larkin dragged Thomas toward the stone balustrade. The black water of the Hudson churned fifty feet below in the freezing dark.
"Wait," I said, stepping forward.
Larkin paused, glancing over his shoulder. The murderous fury in his gray eyes was breathtaking in its savagery, but when his gaze met mine, the madness hesitated.
"He needs to pay, Penelope," Larkin growled.
"He will," I said, stepping closer until I stood beside Larkin at the edge of the terrace. My breath curled in white plumes between us. "But dropping him off a hotel balcony alerts Marcone’s men at the tower. If they realize Thomas failed, they'll blow the vault with thermite before we can get there."
Larkin’s eyes narrowed, his brilliant mind instantly calculating the logistics.
"She's right," Larkin murmured, a terrifying smile breaking across his bloody lips. He threw Thomas to the ground like a sack of garbage. "Tie him to the railing. Tarik will pick him up later."
Larkin turned to me, his gaze sweeping over my disheveled hair, the torn silk at my shoulder, and the blood splattered across my bare ankles.
"Can you run in those shoes, Penelope?" he asked softly.
May you like
I reached down, unbuckled the delicate ankle straps, stepped out of the stilettos, and grabbed them by the heels, turning the steel points upward like two miniature daggers.
"I can run faster than you can drive, Mr. Steves," I said. "Now let's go save our company."
