Chapter 7 - The Target Revealed
The ride back toward the foothills was tense, charged with an electric combination of triumph and lurking danger.
Rosalie sat close to Edmund, her heart still racing from the confrontation at the club. “Was that true? What I said about her shipping invoices?”
Edmund looked down at her, genuine awe softening the fierce lines of his face. “Every word. My forensic accountants took three weeks to uncover that information. You figured it out from a set of cufflinks and family gossip?”
“I told you,” Rosalie murmured, a faint, proud smile touching her lips. “I notice things.”
“You are extraordinary,” Edmund whispered.
He reached out, his hand sliding behind her neck, drawing her toward him. For a moment, Rosalie thought he was going to kiss her—really kiss her—and every nerve in her body screamed for it. But before his lips could meet hers, the Maybach lurched violently to the left.
*BAM!*
A deafening metallic crash echoed through the cabin.
The heavy luxury sedan shuddered as a black commercial flatbed truck plowed into their rear quarter-panel at fifty miles per hour, sending the Maybach spinning across the rain-slicked asphalt of the mountain parkway.
“Ambush!” Michael roared from the front seat, wrestling with the steering wheel.
Rosalie screamed as the world tilted sideways. Glass shattered in the driver’s side window.
Before she could comprehend what was happening, Edmund threw his entire body over hers, pinning her flat against the leather bench seat, shielding her head and torso with his broad frame.
The Maybach slammed into the reinforced steel guardrail, screeching to a violent halt against the rocky hillside.
Silence fell, broken only by the hiss of steam from the ruptured radiator and the smell of burning rubber.
“Rosalie,” Edmund’s voice was rough, urgent, right against her ear. “Are you hit? Look at me. Are you bleeding?”
Rosalie gasped for air, her hands clutching his shoulders. “I’m... I’m okay. I’m okay. Edmund, are you—”
She stopped. Her hand came away from his shoulder covered in thick, dark crimson blood.
A shard of shattered reinforced glass from the side window had driven deep into Edmund’s upper shoulder blade during the impact.
“Michael!” Edmund barked, ignoring the wound completely as he reached inside his jacket and drew a custom matte-black 1911 pistol.
“Two shooters exiting the truck, boss!” Michael yelled, kicking his damaged door open and firing three rapid shots down the road. Gunfire cracked through the mountain air like lightning strikes.
Rosalie’s ears rang with the concussive blasts. Panic threatened to drown her, but as she looked at Edmund—bleeding, his jaw set, his body still positioned to take any incoming bullet meant for her—a fierce, primitive calm settled into her chest.
Ruth’s blood ran in her veins. She was not a victim.
“The glove box,” Rosalie shouted over the gunfire. “Is there a medical kit?”
Edmund fired two controlled shots through the shattered rear window. A scream outside signaled a hit. “Michael’s door pocket! Rosalie, stay down!”
“You’re bleeding out, Edmund!” she cried, lunging across the floorboard to rip open the emergency pouch. She tore open a package of combat gauze and reached for Edmund’s collar, pulling the torn fabric aside to expose the deep puncture wound near his collarbone.
She pressed the gauze into the wound with all the strength in her body.
Edmund let out a sharp hiss of pain, but his gray eyes locked onto hers with a fierce, burning intensity. “You are unbelievable,” he grated out between clenched teeth.
Outside, the gunfire stopped.
Michael’s heavy boots crunched against the gravel. “Both down, boss. Clean. But we have three minutes before highway patrol arrives. Backup SUVs are forty seconds out.”
Edmund lowered his weapon, his chest heaving, his hand reaching up to cover Rosalie’s blood-stained fingers where she was still pressing hard against his wound.
“Julianna didn't do this,” Edmund whispered darkly, his eyes flashing with lethal promise. “Her syndicate doesn't have the stomach for a direct hit.”
“Then who did?” Rosalie asked, tears of terror and adrenaline spilling down her cheeks.
Edmund’s jaw tightened. “My brother’s former partners. The Corvo family. They think killing you will break me.”
He leaned his forehead against hers, his voice dropping into a deadly, unshakeable vow.
May you like
“They are about to learn that you are not my weakness, Rosalie. You are the reason I will burn this city to the ground.”
***
