Chapter 8 - The Boathouse Standoff
The air in the underground tunnel smelled of damp stone and salt spray. By the time they emerged into the wooden boat house at the base of the ocean cliff, Mara’s legs were burning, and her breathing came in ragged gasps. The baby was kicking frantically, reacting to the adrenaline surging through her veins.
Smoke was billowing from the roof of the main manor high above them, painting the night sky in ugly shades of orange and gray.
"The speedboat is fueled," Adrian whispered, leading her toward the fifty-foot offshore vessel docked in the interior slip. "I'm putting you on it. The GPS is preset for a private marina in Mystic, Connecticut. My contacts there will take you to a clinic."
Mara stopped, grabbing his lapel with both hands. "What about you?"
"I have to stay."
"No!" she gasped, her knuckles turning white against his shirt. "You're going to fight fifteen men by yourself?"
"Eli is still trapped in the security lodge," Adrian said, his voice calm, resolute, and completely devoid of fear. "If that fire spreads, that boy burns alive. You bought his life with thirty-six hundred dollars, Mara. I don't default on my wife's contracts."
Tears spilled over her cheeks. All the walls she had built around her heart over the past two years crumbled into dust. She had spent months viewing him as a ruthless monster, but in the darkest hour, he was ready to die for a groundskeeper’s son just because she had asked him to.
"You come back to me," she demanded, her voice breaking. "Do you hear me, Adrian? You don't get to tell me you love me in a dark bedroom and then leave me to raise your child alone!"
Adrian pulled her in, his hands cupping her face, and kissed her fiercely. It was a kiss of fire, blood, and desperate promise—everything they had denied themselves for two long years.
"I'm coming back," he promised against her lips. "I swear it on our child's life."
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He helped her into the boat's lower cabin, locked the hatch from the outside, and hit the automated ocean-gate release.
As the boat began its automated drift into the open waves of Long Island Sound, Adrian turned back toward the burning cliffs, his eyes cold as midnight ice.
