Chapter 8 - The Price of Loyalty
""You faked Julian's voice,"" I gasped, stepping back, only to find two armed men blocking the exit behind me.
""A simple AI voice synthesizer,"" Marco scoffed. ""You nurses are so predictably sentimental. You run toward bleeding hearts like moths to a flame.""
Nathan looked up from the pillar, sporting a black eye and split lip. ""Claire! Help me! Marco said if I helped lure you here, he wouldn't kill me! Please, just give him the codes to the Moretti accounts!""
Disgust churned in my stomach. Nathan had hit rock bottom, willingly aligning with a syndicate traitor just to save his own miserable skin.
""Shut up, you sniveling coward,"" Marco snapped, backhanding Nathan across the face. Nathan whimpered and slumped against the ropes.
Marco turned his gun directly at my chest, his finger tightening against the trigger. ""Adrian has mobilized every loyal soldier in Illinois searching for me. But he doesn't know you're here. Once I eliminate you and that bastard child, Adrian’s legal claim to the family empire dissolves. Grief will make him careless. And then I will take his head.""
My baby kicked violently inside me, sensing my terror. I wrapped both arms protectively around my belly, refusing to let Marco see me beg.
""Adrian will hunt you to the ends of the earth,"" I said through gritted teeth. ""He will tear you apart.""
""He won't have the chance,"" Marco smirked, raising the barrel to aim between my eyes.
CRASH!
The corrugated metal roof above us shattered into a shower of twisted iron and glass.
Before Marco could react, a smoke grenade detonated on the concrete floor, filling the warehouse with thick, choking white fog. Gunfire erupted in sharp, deafening bursts. The two guards behind me collapsed instantly, neutralised by suppressed rounds.
Through the drifting smoke, a silhouette emerged—tall, lethal, moving with terrifying predatory grace.
Adrian Moretti.
His eyes were burning with an unholy fury. In his hands, a customized assault rifle barked twice, dropping Marco’s remaining mercenaries before they could even raise their weapons.
""Claire! Get down!"" Julian’s voice shouted from the upper gantry as he provided covering fire, taking out the snipers stationed in the rafters.
I dropped behind a concrete barrier, curling my body tightly around my stomach.
Marco panicked, spinning toward me to use me as a human shield. But Adrian was faster. He crossed the floor like a thunderbolt, slamming his weapon against Marco’s forearm, sending the pistol clattering across the concrete.
Adrian caught Marco by the throat, driving the older man hard against a steel support beam. The impact rattled the entire scaffolding.
""You touched her,"" Adrian growled, his voice a terrifying demonic rasp. ""You threatened my wife. You threatened my child.""
""Adrian... wait... we're family!"" Marco choked out, kicking frantically as Adrian’s fingers crushed his windpipe.
""You stopped being family the day you looked at her,"" Adrian said coldly.
With a brutal, calculated motion, Adrian slammed his fist into Marco’s jaw, knocking him completely unconscious, before tossing his limp body to the floor like a sack of trash.
Adrian dropped his weapons and dropped to his knees in front of me, his hands trembling violently as he reached out.
""Claire. Claire, look at me,"" he breathed, his voice cracking with sheer desperation. ""Are you hurt? Did they touch you?""
I threw my arms around his neck, burying my face into his chest, inhaling the scent of gunsmoke, leather, and winter air. ""I'm okay. We're okay. You came.""
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Adrian pulled me so tightly against him that I could feel the violent pounding of his heart against my ribs. He kissed my forehead, my eyelids, my trembling lips, whispering broken vows into my hair.
""Never again,"" he choked out, pressing his forehead against mine. ""I will burn this entire city to the ground before I let anyone put fear in your eyes again.""
