Chapter 7 - The Bullet Meant for Him
A flash-bang grenade rolled from the garden doorway, detonating with an ear-splitting crack and a blinding wall of white magnesium light.
Luca burst into the room, firing his suppressed submachine gun with lethal accuracy. The two rear guards crumpled to the stone floor before they could pull their triggers.
In the blinding chaos, Thomas screamed and fired wildly into the smoke.
I saw the muzzle flash. I saw the trajectory of the barrel aiming straight for Marco’s exposed neck as he moved to tackle the second gunman.
Without thinking, without calculating the odds or considering the architecture of my own survival, I threw myself forward, slamming my weight into Marco’s chest.
The impact hit me like a sledgehammer.
A searing, white-hot line of agony ripped across my left shoulder blade, spinning me around as the sound of the gunshot echoed in my skull. I hit the stone floor hard, my head cracking against the wooden wine rack, bottles of vintage wine shattering around me in an explosion of glass and dark, blood-red liquid.
""Isabel!""
Marco’s roar was not human. It was the sound of a wild beast witnessing the destruction of the only thing it possessed.
Through my fading, blurred vision, I saw Marco rise like an avenging demon through the smoke. He didn't use his gun. He crossed the cellar floor in two massive strides, grabbed Thomas by the lapels of his tailored coat, and slammed him against the stone archway with bone-shattering force.
""You touched her,"" Marco hissed, his hands wrapping around Thomas’s throat, lifting the grown man three inches off the floor.
Thomas gagged, his face turning purple, his feet kicking uselessly against the stone as the life was choked out of him.
""Marco... no,"" I gasped, blood bubbling at the corner of my lips as I clutched my shoulder. ""Don't... don't let him die like that. We need... the papers.""
Marco’s grey eyes, wide with madness and bloodlust, snapped down to me. The fury in him fractured, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated terror.
He dropped Thomas like a sack of trash to the cellar floor. Thomas lay there, coughing and weeping, gasping for air in the shattered wine.
Marco fell to his knees beside me. He didn't care about the gunfire still popping outside, or the sirens that were now wailing from the avenue. His hands were shaking as he ripped open my tactical jacket, pressing his palm hard against the bullet wound on my shoulder.
""Look at me, Isabel,"" he commanded, his voice trembling violently. ""Look at me! Don't you close your eyes!""
""I'm fine,"" I lied, the pain making my teeth chatter. ""It’s... it's just French lace and roses, right?""
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""Damn you,"" he choked out, scooping me into his arms, lifting me against his chest as if I weighed nothing at all. He looked down at Luca, who stood over Thomas with a drawn weapon. ""Secure the documents and the hardware key. Take Rossi alive. Call the surgeon at the estate. Tell him if she dies, I will burn this entire city to the ground.""
As Marco carried me through the garden, into the cold autumn rain, I pressed my face into the crook of his neck. The rain washed over us, but against his chest, wrapped in his warmth and the desperate beat of his heart, I had never felt safer in my life.
