Chapter 4 - Blood and ConcreteThe sound of gunfire inside the enclosed concrete garage was deafening.
Bang. Bang-bang.
I screamed, pulling Noah down onto the floor of the Mercedes and covering his head with my body. The little boy woke up crying, terrified by the noise and the flashing lights, his small hands clutching the fabric of my blouse.
“Shh, shh, Noah, I’ve got you,” I whispered, my own voice shaking violently as tears stung my eyes. “Look at Gerald. Look at the elephant, buddy. Everything is going to be okay.”
Through the thick, bulletproof rear window of the car, the chaos unfolded in terrifying slow motion.
Two masked men in tactical gear rounded the corner of the parking row, automatic rifles raised. Marcus fired twice from behind a concrete pillar, dropping the first man instantly. But the second man swung his weapon toward Marcus’s position.
Before he could pull the trigger, Adrian appeared from the shadows beside the service stairwell.
His movements were brutally efficient. Two suppressed shots cracked through the air. The second gunman spun around and collapsed hard against the concrete, his weapon clattering across the floor.
Two more gunmen emerged from the stairwell, shouting commands, but Adrian and Marcus had already flanked them. Within thirty seconds, the gunfire stopped.
Silence descended on the garage, broken only by the steady dripping of a leaky pipe in the corner and the wail of the building’s overhead alarm.
I let out a ragged breath, my entire body trembling. I unlocked the car door, pushed it open, and stepped out onto the concrete, still holding Noah tightly against my chest.
Adrian was standing over one of the fallen gunmen, his pistol still raised, his chest heaving slightly. His suit jacket was torn at the shoulder, and a smear of dark blood—not his own—staining the pristine white cuff of his dress shirt.
He looked up and saw me standing there with his son.
In a fraction of a second, the lethal predator vanished. Adrian shoved his gun back into his holster, crossed the garage in two hurried strides, and took Noah from my arms.
“Are you hurt?” Adrian demanded, his hands gripping my shoulders, his eyes scanning my face with frantic desperation. “Elena, did any of them touch you?”
“I’m fine,” I breathed, my voice barely a whisper. “We’re both fine. But you... your shoulder—”
“It’s nothing,” Adrian said dismissively, though his grip on my arms remained tight, as if he needed the physical contact to convince himself we were actually safe. He pulled Noah into a tight, crushing hug, burying his face in the boy’s dark hair. “You okay, buddy? Did the loud noises scare you?”
Noah sniffled, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “I want to go home, Dad.”
“We’re going home,” Adrian promised, his voice thick with emotion. He looked up at Marcus, who was already inspecting the bodies and confiscating their encrypted radios. “Clean this up. Make sure the cleaning crew sanitizes the garage before the police arrive. I want every trace of this tied up before sundown.”
“Consider it done, boss,” Marcus nodded grimly.
Adrian turned back to me, his hand resting firmly on the small of my back as he guided me toward the driver’s side of the armored Mercedes. “Get in the front seat, Elena. We’re leaving. Now.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, sliding into the leather passenger seat as Adrian strapped Noah securely into a booster seat in the back.
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Adrian slammed his door shut, threw the car into reverse with aggressive precision, and hit the accelerator toward the exit ramp.
“Not back to your apartment,” Adrian said, his jaw set in a hard, uncompromising line. “And not to my office. We’re going to the estate. Because after today, staying anywhere else in Manhattan is a death sentence.”
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