Chapter 2 - Every single ounce of oxygen violently evacuated his lungs in a ragged, desperate gasp.
His heavy, muscular legs simply ceased to function.
The ruthless, previously untouchable mafia lieutenant crumpled like a flimsy lawn chair and smashed face-first onto the canvas in a pathetic heap of tangled limbs, desperately sucking for oxygen that stubbornly refused to enter his lungs.
"Boss!" Dominic shrieked in horror, slamming his flat palms aggressively against the edge of the ring apron.
Cassidy calmly took two measured steps backward and quietly retreated to the neutral corner.
Her beautiful face remained totally impassive.
She silently watched Vincent thrash around on the sticky mat, desperately clutching his tender side, his handsome face completely contorted in pure, unadulterated agony.
The supposedly invincible Coletti underboss was down on the floor, thoroughly humbled by one flawlessly delivered strike.
Slowly and with immense pain, Vincent managed to roll himself over onto his hands and knees.
Dominic began shouting out the referee’s standing count, though Vincent couldn't hear a single word of it.
He battled violently against the blinding waves of pain, ignoring his screaming muscles, and literally dragged his heavy body upright using the ring ropes just as Dominic screamed the number eight.
Vincent stood there swaying dizzily, his pale torso flushed an angry, bright red exactly where Cassidy had buried her glove.
He cast a pained gaze across the squared circle.
Cassidy wasn't gloating or flashing a triumphant smile.
She was just patiently waiting, looking like a stunning yet terrifying biomechanical machine fully prepared to dismantle him a second time.
In that exact, surreal moment, buried beneath the blinding physical agony, his shattered masculine ego, and the sharp metallic tang of fresh blood in his mouth, Vincent Coletti surprisingly did not feel an ounce of anger.
He just felt completely and hopelessly obsessed with the woman standing across from him.
The loud bell signaling the third and final round echoed hauntingly through the massive, cavernous expanse of the Iron and Blood gym.
Vincent cautiously stepped out of his corner, but his famous swagger had entirely vanished.
His right ribcage had morphed into a horrifying canvas of angry purple and mottled red bruising, serving as painful evidence of the devastating left hook that had nearly killed him three minutes prior.
He kept his right elbow tightly pinned against his ribs, firmly prioritizing his own survival over projecting dominance.
The cocky arrogance had been quite literally beaten out of his system and quickly replaced by a cold, highly calculating sense of respect.
Cassidy met him calmly right in the dead center of the ring.
She did not rush him aggressively or recklessly press her massive advantage to hunt for a highlight-reel knockout.
She simply maintained a flawless spatial distance, keeping her custom-taped weapons held high and her chin tucked securely downward.
Vincent desperately attempted to bait her into moving closer.
He purposely dropped his left guard and threw out a lazy, sluggish jab, desperately hoping she would step inside his reach again so he could lock her in a tight clinch and use his ninety-pound weight advantage to smother her offense.
Cassidy instantly recognized the clumsy trap.
Instead of swallowing the bait, she smoothly circled to her right side, moving intelligently away from his dangerous power hand, and constantly pelted him with quick, annoying, stinging jabs directly to his sweaty forehead.
These light punches were not actually intended to cause physical damage.
They were strategically meant to obscure his vision, heavily disrupt his forward rhythm, and safely burn off the remaining seconds on the clock.
Vincent’s simmering frustration finally boiled over the edge.
"Stand still and fight me, damn it!"
He lunged forcefully with a reckless, looping overhand right, leaving his entire torso completely wide open to a counterattack.
It was the highly desperate, incredibly sloppy movement of an unrefined street brawler.
Cassidy easily could have ended the entire bout in that split second.
She had secured the perfect angle for a catastrophic uppercut that would have undoubtedly shattered his strong jaw into pieces.
Instead, as Vincent’s own out-of-control momentum carried his body heavily forward, Cassidy simply pivoted out of the danger zone, wrapped her padded glove firmly around the nape of his neck, and safely guided his face straight into the heavily padded corner turnbuckle.
She expertly trapped him there in a professional boxing clinch, positioning her mouthguard right next to his sweaty ear.
"You’re fighting with raw anger, Coletti," she whispered softly.
Her breathing pattern remained perfectly steady while his exhausted lungs continued heaving like mechanical bellows.
"Anger just makes you stupid, and being stupid is what gets people killed in our world."
Vincent struggled angrily to rip himself out of her grasp, but Cassidy had completely and totally neutralized his physical leverage.
Just before Dominic could step through the ropes and forcefully separate the two fighters, the final bell unexpectedly rang out.
Cassidy immediately let go of Vincent’s neck, took a large step backward, and dropped her taped hands down to her waist.
She fearlessly turned her back on the single most dangerous underboss in all of New York City and strolled calmly back toward her designated corner to spit out her black mouthguard.
The vast warehouse fell completely, terrifyingly silent.
The ultra-wealthy mafia figures who had confidently placed five-figure bets on Cassidy leaving the venue inside a black body bag just stared at the ring in utter, jaw-dropping disbelief.
A seemingly fragile cocktail waitress had not merely survived three brutal rounds locked in a cage with Vincent Coletti.
She had clinically dismantled him, thoroughly embarrassed him in front of his crew, and ultimately chosen to spare him from a humiliating knockout.
Vincent leaned his exhausted body heavily against the top rope and stared intensely at her retreating back.
He angrily waved his rushing cornerman away from the apron.
He did not care about getting water right now.
He desperately wanted real answers.
Moving very slowly, he aggressively loosened the straps of his sixteen-ounce Cleto Reyes gloves using his own teeth and tossed them carelessly down onto the bloody canvas.
He snatched a thick white towel, angrily wiped the smeared blood from his nose and the stinging sweat from his eyes, and ducked fluidly through the tight ropes.
He marched directly toward the heavy steel lockbox resting on the timekeeper’s folding table.
Dominic, looking incredibly pale and sweating bullets, hesitated nervously.
"Boss, you seriously can’t be considering paying her."
"She literally ran away for the entire duration of the third round."
"That has to count as a loss on a technicality."
"Shut your damn mouth right now, Dom," Vincent snapped viciously.
His gravelly voice carried a low, incredibly lethal warning tone.
He popped the lock on the metal box and pulled out a thick, neatly banded stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills.
It was exactly fifty thousand dollars.
Vincent stomped over to Cassidy’s corner of the floor.
She was busy unwinding the tight athletic tape from her bruised wrists.
Her piercing amber eyes flicked upward to calmly meet his intense stare.
"I believe I owe you exactly fifty thousand dollars," Vincent stated firmly, tossing the heavy brick of banded cash onto the wooden bench right beside her canvas gym bag.
"You definitely earned every single dollar of it."
Cassidy did not eagerly reach out to grab the massive pile of money.
She simply offered a polite, muted nod of acknowledgment.
"Thank you for being a man of your word and honoring the wager."
"I always make sure to pay my debts in full."
Vincent leaned his large frame against the steel ring post and winced noticeably as his deeply bruised ribs violently protested the movement.
"Now I want you to tell me the actual truth."
"Absolutely nobody moves around a ring like that unless they’ve spent at least a decade breathing in canvas dust."
"So tell me, who taught you how to fight?"
Cassidy calmly zipped up the top of her duffel bag.
"My father taught me everything I know."
"He actually ran a heavy-bag youth program out of Gleason’s Gym for years before the rising property taxes eventually forced him to shut down."
Vincent’s dark eyes narrowed suspiciously.
He knew the complicated inner workings of the Brooklyn boxing scene better than almost anyone else alive.
"Wait just a second."
"You’re actually Tommy Gallagher’s kid?"
"The legendary Iron Tommy?"
"That man was an absolute legend in the fight game."
"He was a legend, yes," Cassidy quickly corrected, her soft voice suddenly dropping by an entire octave in sorrow.
Vincent paused for a heavy moment.
"Right, I remember now."
"The tragic heart attack."
"It wasn’t a natural heart attack," Cassidy stated coldly, pulling the thick canvas strap of her duffel bag up over her sore shoulder.
"The city coroner was paid off."
"My father was actually poisoned."
"Someone placed lethal doses of strychnine directly into his water bottle right in the middle of a sparring session."
The thin air lingering between them suddenly turned ice cold.
Vincent stood up perfectly straight as his finely tuned criminal instincts instantly overrode his slightly bruised male ego.
"Who did it?"
"Victor Tarasov ordered the hit."
Cassidy spoke the vile Russian name as though it tasted like bitter ash resting heavily on her tongue.
The terrifying Tarasov syndicate actively controlled the highly ruthless Brighton Beach criminal factions.
It stood as the Coletti crime family’s absolute greatest rival, operating as a heavily armed organization deeply involved in global human trafficking and brutal extortion rackets.
"My idiot brother Declan owed the Tarasov crew a lot of money," Cassidy continued softly, staring numbly down at the massive stack of cash.
"My father simply couldn’t afford to pay it off, so the Russians cruelly made a public example out of him."
"Declan has since completely disappeared off the map, and Tarasov legally transferred the outstanding debt directly onto my shoulders."
"He promised me to my face that if I didn’t hand over exactly fifty grand by tomorrow morning, he would lock me inside one of his dark shipping containers headed straight for Eastern Europe."
Vincent just stood there and stared deeply at her face.
The fragile, unassuming cocktail-waitress facade had been completely stripped away, rapidly replaced by the image of a highly tragic, steel-forged survivor.
She hadn't stepped into that ring to fight him for the sake of her own pride.
She had violently fought for her literal right to survive another day.
"So you’re planning on paying off Tarasov using my family's money," Vincent observed, a highly dangerous edge suddenly creeping back into his deep voice.
"Money is just money, Mr. Coletti."
"I just want to live to see tomorrow."
"Do you honestly think fifty grand is going to buy your actual freedom from the vicious Tarasov syndicate?"
A completely new voice suddenly echoed loudly through the cavernous gym space.
The voice definitely did not belong to Vincent Coletti.
It was the voice of Dominic.
Vincent and Cassidy whipped around simultaneously.
Dominic was standing closely near the warehouse’s massive front steel doors, but he was obviously not alone.
He had secretly released the heavy deadbolts while they were talking.
Four incredibly massive men wearing dark trench coats stepped ominously out of the rolling Brooklyn fog, displaying faces severely hardened by brutal Russian winters.
Standing right at their center was a man sporting a deeply scarred cheek and projecting a terrifyingly cold, completely lifeless smile.
He was none other than Alexei, Victor Tarasov’s highly feared chief enforcer.
"Dominic," Vincent growled like a cornered animal.
His large right hand instinctively darted down toward the waistband of his athletic sweatpants.
He tragically realized a second too late that he had completely removed his concealed Glock 19 pistol right before stepping between the ropes to fight.
"What the absolute hell is the meaning of this?"
Dominic quickly drew a heavily suppressed SIG Sauer pistol from his tailored jacket and aimed it directly at the center of Vincent’s broad chest.
His sweaty hand trembled slightly, but his dark eyes remained steadfastly resolute in their betrayal.
"It’s just strictly business, Vince," Dominic announced, his shaky voice echoing loudly throughout the empty warehouse.
"You’ve been entirely too soft ever since you forcibly took control over the lucrative West Side docks."
"The Tarasov family personally offered me a massive twenty percent share of all future pier shipments if I successfully delivered you to them."
"They also kindly offered me a very generous cash bonus for handing over the Gallagher girl."
"Victor desperately wants her brought in alive so he can publicly make a brutal example out of her."
Vincent suddenly released a dark, booming bellow of laughter that managed to send a cold shiver racing down Cassidy’s spine.
Even while staring helplessly down the dark barrel of a fully loaded weapon, nursing heavily injured ribs, and possessing no firearm of his own, the Coletti underboss somehow looked exactly like a rabid wolf eagerly preparing to tear out someone's throat.
"Dom, you incredibly stupid, unbelievably greedy bastard," Vincent spat with venom.
"You’re nothing but a loose end to them."
"They’ll gladly shoot you in the back the very second that I’m dead on this floor."
"Just shut your mouth!" Dominic shouted back in panic.
Alexei simply chuckled darkly as he took a casual step forward and slid a massive, heavy combat knife smoothly from his leather belt.
"He is actually very right, little Italian traitor."
"But we will kindly allow you to live just long enough to sit here and watch him bleed out on the concrete."
"Take out the mafia boss."
"Grab the pretty girl."
Two of the towering Russian enforcers simultaneously drew their suppressed weapons and charged aggressively toward the ring.
Absolutely everything unfolded within a chaotic fraction of a single second.
Cassidy adamantly refused to scream.
She absolutely did not freeze in terror.
The deeply ingrained combat survival instincts meticulously forged by her late father instantly shifted into the highest possible gear.
She desperately snatched up the heavy, banded brick of fifty thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills and viciously hurled it with every ounce of her remaining strength directly into the face of the lead charging Russian.
The densely packed stack of cash violently struck the bridge of the enforcer's nose, instantly blinding him with pain and sending him staggering wildly backward.
At the exact same moment, Vincent dove desperately behind the heavy steel frame of the timekeeper’s table just as a panicking Dominic fully pulled the trigger on his pistol.
The deadly suppressed bullets violently tore into the wooden floorboards occupying the exact space where Vincent had been standing a mere millisecond earlier.
Cassidy athletically vaulted right over the steel bench and rapidly closed the distance on the highly staggered Russian thug before he could even attempt to raise his firearm again.
She expertly delivered a vicious, violently twisting palm strike directly flush beneath his jawline.
The massive man’s head snapped violently backward, and he immediately crashed like a felled tree onto the hard concrete floor.
Cassidy flawlessly stripped a heavy Makarov pistol directly from the unconscious enforcer's grip and chucked it blindly through the dusty air.
"Coletti, catch!"
Vincent miraculously caught the flying weapon mid-dive.
He rolled smoothly onto his sweaty back, fighting fiercely through the highly agonizing waves of pain radiating from his ribs, quickly aimed down the iron sights, and rapidly fired three times in a row.
The deafening, totally unsuppressed reports of the large Makarov pistol echoed exactly like booming cannon fire throughout the enclosed warehouse space.
Two more heavily armed Russian gunmen fell dead to the floor.
Alexei quickly dived for cover behind a hanging cluster of heavy leather punching bags, angrily shouting a stream of vile curses in his native Russian tongue.
Finally realizing that he had completely and utterly lost control over the chaotic situation, Dominic swiftly turned his back and furiously sprinted toward the wide-open warehouse loading doors.
"You aren’t going anywhere at all, you rat," Vincent snarled loudly.
He rose unsteadily to his feet and aimed carefully down the pistol’s iron sights, but his severely injured ribs suddenly spasmed in protest.
The rushed shot completely missed its intended target and instead shattered the red brick wall mere inches beside Dominic’s fleeing head.
Dominic cowardly continued his frantic sprint toward freedom.
Suddenly, a heavy red Cleto Reyes boxing glove flew rapidly through the dimly lit air.
Cassidy had cleverly scooped up one of Vincent’s discarded leather gloves from the floor and violently hurled it forward with the terrifying precision of a major-league baseball pitcher.
The solid sixteen-ounce mass of wrapped leather perfectly struck Dominic right behind his right knee joint.
His weakened leg instantly buckled underneath him, sending the traitor crashing face-first down onto the unforgiving concrete floor.
Before the dazed Dominic could even attempt to recover his footing, Cassidy was already on top of his sprawling body.
She violently planted a sharp knee directly into the dead center of his spine, firmly seized his right wrist, and aggressively twisted his entire arm upward until the delicate shoulder joint audibly screamed in physical protest.
Dominic whimpered in pain and immediately released his grip on the loaded SIG Sauer.
A heavy, tense silence slowly settled back over the bloodied gym, completely broken only by the pathetic groans of the wounded Russian men and the distant, wailing sound of approaching police sirens coming from across the East River.
Vincent walked very slowly over to the exact spot where Cassidy had Dominic pinned securely against the dirty floor.
He ruthlessly struck Dominic hard across the temple with the heavy steel grip of the Makarov pistol, instantly rendering the traitor totally unconscious.
The Coletti family owned very specific, dark basements out on Staten Island solely reserved for punishing cowardly traitors.
Today was clearly not going to be Dominic’s day to simply die quickly.
Vincent slowly turned his attention back toward Cassidy.
She was breathing incredibly heavily from the adrenaline dump.
Her taped hands were now visibly stained with the fresh blood of the heavily armed men she had just fought off, and her tightly woven braided hair had finally begun to come loose from its bands.
She looked absolutely fierce, devastatingly beautiful, and completely, undeniably lethal.
"I suppose our sanctioned fight is officially over now," Cassidy casually said, cautiously moving away from Dominic’s unconscious, bleeding body.
"My hard-earned money is currently scattered all across your dirty floor."
"Tarasov definitely knows you’re standing here now," Vincent solemnly replied, carefully pushing the hot pistol securely back into his sweatpants waistband.
"If you try to run away alone, Alexei will undoubtedly hunt you down like an animal."
"You honestly won’t even reach the state border line."
"So what’s my actual choice here, Coletti?"
"Do I die right here in Brooklyn, or do I die bleeding out on a dark highway somewhere?"
Vincent deliberately stepped closer, boldly invading her personal space once again.
The entire emotional dynamic vibrating between them had entirely, fundamentally changed.
There was absolutely no condescension present in his eyes now, only the thrilling beginning sparks of a very dark and highly magnetic new partnership.
"You absolutely don’t die," Vincent promised her very softly.
"You get to keep the fifty thousand dollars in cash, but you certainly don’t return to pouring cheap drinks for scumbags."
"You work directly for me now."
"I desperately need someone reliable who can watch my blind side, someone who hits as hard as a runaway freight train, and someone who refuses to flinch when the heavy bullets finally start flying."
Cassidy’s rapid breathing finally began to slow down.
"You actually want Victor Tarasov’s severed head delivered on a silver platter?"
Her breath suddenly hitched in her throat.
"We are going to violently take down the entire Brighton Beach operation together," Vincent solemnly promised.
He slowly extended a heavily bloodstained hand directly toward her waiting grip.
"Welcome to the Coletti family, Miss Gallagher."
Cassidy stared down intently at his offered hand.
She thought deeply about her murdered father and the crushing financial debt that had ruthlessly suffocated her entire young life.
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With a dangerously hard, completely uncompromising expression burning brightly in her amber eyes, she confidently reached forward and firmly clasped the mafia underboss’s bloody hand.
"When exactly do we start?"
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