Chapter 15 - The Trap is Sprung
|
“Lock the door!” Amelia screamed, sprinting from the kitchen.
Angela fumbled with her keys, rushing toward the front entrance, but her hands were shaking too badly.
Before Angela could turn the deadbolt, Raymond grabbed the brass handle from the outside and violently yanked the heavy glass door open. The brass bell jingled merrily, a sickening contrast to the monster stepping inside.
“Hello, Amelia,” Raymond said, stepping into the warm diner, shaking the sleet from his heavy coat.
Angela screamed and backed away. Tony the cook rushed out of the kitchen with a heavy meat cleaver, but Raymond casually reached into his coat and pulled out a snub-nosed revolver, pointing it directly at Tony’s chest.
“Put the knife down, fat man, or I’ll paint the grill with your brains,” Raymond sneered.
Tony froze, slowly lowering the cleaver.
Raymond turned his attention back to Amelia. He walked slowly toward her, his eyes full of a dark, obsessive hunger.
“You thought you could run from me?” Raymond whispered, trapping her against the counter. “You thought some New York mafia boss could keep you safe? You belong to me.”
Amelia’s entire body was shaking, but as she looked at Raymond’s face, a sudden, powerful realization washed over her. He looked older. He looked pathetic. The terrifying monster from her nightmares was just a sad, violent man with a gun.
She wasn't the same terrified girl who had fled Chicago. She had survived Derek. She had survived her own fear.
“I don't belong to anyone,” Amelia said, her voice completely steady, shocking Raymond. “And you are a dead man for walking into this diner.”
Raymond laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “Your boss’s guards are gone, sweetheart. He’s busy fighting a war at the docks. Nobody is coming to save you.”
He reached out and grabbed her arm, intending to drag her out the door.
But as his hand closed around her wrist, the heavy metal back door of the kitchen burst open with a deafening crash.
May you like
“You are misinformed,” a dark, lethal voice echoed through the diner.
Vincent Castellano stepped out of the kitchen shadows, a suppressed handgun raised and pointed directly at the center of Raymond’s forehead.
