Chapter 9 - The Final Ambush
Tires howled against the slick asphalt as the heavy limousine spun forty-five degrees across Lake Shore Drive.
A heavy, modified Ford F-250 had rammed their rear quarter-panel, shoving the luxury sedan toward the concrete retaining wall separating the highway from the black, churning waters of Lake Michigan.
Gabriel acted purely on instinct. He threw his arm across Elena’s chest, pulling her down into his lap and shielding her body with his own as the Maybach slammed into the barrier with a bone-jarring impact. Glass shattered somewhere behind them; airbags deployed with explosive force, filling the cabin with white smoke and the smell of gunpowder.
Elena gasped, pinned beneath Gabriel’s weight. “Gabriel!”
“Stay down!” he roared.
The driver, bleeding from a cut on his forehead, was already kicking his jammed door open, pulling a concealed Glock from beneath his armpit. But before he could step out, the driver of the truck backed up, revving its engine for a second, fatal strike to crush the Maybach against the wall.
Gabriel kicked his own door open. “Elena, out! Now!”
He pulled her through the damaged frame onto the wet pavement just as the truck lunged forward, smashing into the Maybach’s passenger side with the force of a wrecking ball. Metal crumpled like paper.
Through the shattered windshield of the truck, illuminated by the flashing hazard lights, Elena saw the driver.
It wasn't a professional hitman.
It was Julian.
His tuxedo was torn, his eyes completely wild, dilated with madness and cocaine. Ruined, disgraced, and facing decades in prison, he had completely snapped. He shifted the truck into reverse, preparing to run them down on foot.
“Run, Elena!” Gabriel shouted, pushing her behind the concrete barrier toward the pedestrian underpass.
“I’m not leaving you!” she screamed over the wail of distant police sirens.
Julian floored the accelerator. The massive truck surged forward, tires smoking, aiming straight for Gabriel.
Gabriel didn’t run. He stood in the middle of the highway, a towering figure under the yellow streetlamps, his eyes cold and unflinching. At the very last fraction of a second, as the bumper came within inches of his legs, Gabriel pivoted hard to the right.
The truck hit the crumpled remains of the Maybach instead, using the limousine as a ramp. The F-250 launched into the air, flipping violently over the concrete barrier, smashing through the iron railing, and plummeting forty feet down into the freezing, churning black waves of Lake Michigan below.
A massive splash echoed through the fog, followed by silence.
Elena fell to her knees on the wet sidewalk, chest heaving, the emerald dress torn at the hem.
Gabriel rushed to her side, dropping down into the puddle, his tuxedo soaked, his hands desperately framing her face. “Elena! Are you hurt? Look at me!”
Elena looked up into his face. His hair was disheveled, rain dripping from his chin, his composure completely shattered by raw terror—not for his empire, not for his fortune, but for her.
Without thinking, she grabbed the lapels of his midnight-blue jacket and pulled him down, crashing her lips against his.
May you like
The kiss was desperate, fierce, tasting of rain, smoke, and survival. Gabriel groaned, wrapping his arms around her waist, lifting her against his chest as if she were the only real, solid thing in a collapsing universe. All the polite restraint of high society burned away into pure, unfiltered passion beneath the flashing red and blue lights reflecting off the storm clouds above.
***
