I’d managed to fashion a couple of tools out of tree branches, whittling the shorter one into a crude point that I could wedge between the pieces of the metal frame pinning Astrid’s leg into place. Unfortunately, the third strike left her screeching so loudly that I was concerned she would attract unwanted attention. Why couldn’t our reserves include painkillers as well as antibiotics? Unable to continue trying to free her without sending her into worlds of pain, I gave up a nearly two-hour project.
I ground my teeth and swung the branch I intended to use as leverage as hard as possible against the side of the helicopter's remains. It shattered, leaving me with a splintered end of thick wood. I tossed it aside and bellowed my disgust before circling the chopper to plop down on my usual spot near Astrid.
She stared at me with wide eyes and dilated pupils. Her modest chest rose and fell with the rapidity of a hurt rabbit.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay,” she breathed. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t bear the pain anymore.”
“It only hurts when I try to free you?”
Astrid shook her head. “It hurts all the time. It’s just normally a dull pain.”
“Is it bad?”
“It’s… bearable.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry,” I said, resting my arms on my knees and laying my forehead on them.
“It’s not your fault. This is Tanaka’s,” Astrid said.
“Fuck! I don’t want to leave you here!”
Chloe had risen, had a bite to eat, and prepped to leave before waking me up to tell me she was leaving. Feeling guilty that I’d slept through her time at the camp, I scrambled to get dressed as she went over the plan. She would spend the day keeping an eye on the cabin, watching for patterns of behavior, weak points, and opportunities to pick off any stragglers. She would signal me when she wanted me to come to her, giving me the bearing to use on the compass to get to the cabin and telling me to give Astrid one of the pistols before leaving so she had a way to defend herself.
She had been cold again, treating everything like it was just another day as my bodyguard and nothing else. Like last night, I tried to keep a certain level of understanding. She was anxious about taking the cabin. She was probably still raw from watching someone killed who didn’t deserve to die. On top of that, she was probably still struggling with having crossed emotional and physical lines with me. I really did get it.
However, understanding it and not letting it bother me were two completely different things.
And that’s why I was so reluctant to simply leave Astrid. Regardless of our differences, she’d been something of an emotional anchor for me the past two days in a way that I hoped I’d been some kind of emotional anchor to Chloe. We had talked for countless hours, and there was no point in denying that there was an attraction between us. My feelings about Astrid were complex and layered. I would have hated for something to happen to her while we took the cabin, leaving me with unanswered questions.
“I’m touched by your concern, but I can take care of myself, Marcus,” Astrid said softly.
“I’m sure you can, Astrid, but it’d be a hell of a lot better if I could just take you with me.”
“How are we going to get there?” Astrid asked. “I can’t walk like this. Are you going to carry me on your back?”
“That was the plan.”
Astrid shook her head. “I’d slow you down too much, and Chloe would likely want you there at a certain time. I promise you… I’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” I sighed, and reached into one of the pouches of the parachute harness I had with me to pull out a small packet. Fishing out one of the antibiotics, I noted how many we had left—two. She had enough for tomorrow and Friday… after that, hopefully her body would be enough to fight off any infection.
Grabbing some water, I stood up, moved over to her, and crouched over her head like I’d done so many times. She took the pill from me with a grateful smile and popped it in her mouth. Then she sipped the water bottle to wash the pill down.
“You know,” I said, “I’m going to miss these long talks of ours after we get out of here.”
Astrid removed the mouth of the bottle and sighed in enjoyment. “It’s a shame it took something like this for us to slow down enough to get to know each other a little better.”
“Yeah,” I said, noticing how she ran the tip of her tongue across her bottom lip to collect errant wetness. “I’ve actually enjoyed your company more than I thought I would.”
“Why did you think I would be bad company?” Astrid said, arching an eyebrow at me. She tilted her head up, her lips parted ever so slightly so that I saw a hint of teeth and tongue. Her big, liquid blue-green eyes stared up at me.
“We got a long well enough,” I said. It was my turn to lick my lips, finding them suddenly a little too dry. “You voted against me in the board room, and then the whole thing with Bobbi…”
One corner of Astrid’s mouth quirked as she looked at me chidingly. “You can’t possibly hold me responsible for my vote, Marcus. I didn’t know you, and Maddox seemed like a more suitable choice. As for Bobbi…”
The admonition in her gaze faded, and she looked a little guilty. “I’m sorry I took things farther than you and she were comfortable with. I thought your relationship was a little more… intense than it was.”
Her eyes traveled down to my lips, and she said, “I’m not used to having people push back the way you did. I would like—”
I lowered my lips to hers and cut off whatever else she was going to say as we kissed. The moment our mouths touched, her tongue lapped against my top lip, and I immediately opened my mouth to accept it. Ours met as she invaded me, and began softly caressing as our lips ran over each other.
I cupped her head in my hands as the kiss began to deepen. What started as teasing caresses became hunger and need. Astrid was trapped in wreckage that left her unable to move. She’d spent long hours at a time in complete isolation while Chloe and I had bonded. She was about to be abandoned as I joined Chloe to take the cabin. Meanwhile, I’d grown closer to the woman I’d been longing for, only to have her pull away and become increasingly distant over the last twenty-four hours.
We both had something missing… something that we could give each other to help make the last few hours pass more bearably.
My right hand slid down Astrid’s neck, fingers wandering over her smooth skin. She felt like the cleanest, purest thing in the forest—a contrast to Chloe.
Chloe was beautiful, raw, and earthy… a representation of the primal intensity of base instinct and desire. In a place like this, where we were surviving for our very lives while away from all those creature comforts, maybe it made sense that she was comfortable enough to cross those forbidden lines.
Astrid was the complete opposite. Despite being trapped out here with us, she was comparatively clean and put together. She had few abrasions or bruises from the crash. It was as if the wilds and danger wouldn’t touch her, no matter how hard they tried. She was lovely grace, and the single thread that still connected me to everything clean and civilized… everything that made me human.
Neither one was better than the other—just different.
Thing is… Chloe wasn’t here. Astrid was.
My fingers slid lower, disappearing under the collar of her shirt to explore the expanse of her chest. A sound from her was all the permission I needed. She’d been trying to get me to do this for days… I was sure of it.
There was no bra. She had to have gotten rid of it between yesterday and today because I would have noticed those hard little nubs of flesh had she not been wearing one the last couple of days.
My fingers closed over one of her nipples, and I lightly twisted it, getting another series of soft moans from. Her slender piano player’s fingers brushed the side of my face, and she plunged her tongue further down my throat as I played with her chest. She clearly enjoyed having them played with.
The next few minutes passed in relative silence as we messaged our lips and tongues against each other. My one hand palmed a small, almost nonexistent breast before switching to the other. I took special attention to grind against her nipples, getting beautiful little mewls of pleasure from the heiress. I could feel her chest pressing against my hand, greedily trying for more pressure. Her fingers curled into fists on the side of my head, the pressure between them increasing as if she were trying to take out all her pent-up sexual energy by pushing it into my temples.
Finally, she broke my kiss and panted against my lips, “Marcus, I want you inside of me so badly.”
I wanted it too, but that was a sheer impossibility. Seat cushions and twisted frame obscured everything from the middle of her torso and down. She was wrapped in a cocoon of wreckage that Chloe and I had torn away to expose her face and chest. Fucking her was out of the question. Hell… I wasn’t sure if I’d even be able to reach between her legs to finger her, but I was willing to try.
“I want it, too,” I said. I thought about taking my pistol out of the front of my pants and opening them so that she could suck on my cock, but that would have been entirely unfair to her if I couldn’t get her off. The dark thought crossed my mind again that I didn’t necessarily need to be fair to her… after all, she hadn’t been good to Bobbi.
But I let it pass. That’s not what this was… not right now. We were simply two people with a desire for each other and a need for that desire to be satiated.
“Can you try?” Astrid said, staring up at me with those big blue-grey pools. The look in her eyes was nearly heartbreaking. “I can do it myself, but if you can reach me…”
I glanced down at where her midsection disappeared under the wreckage, imagining me slipping my hand underneath it to reach her quivering mound, my face level with her tits, allowing me to suck on them while her lips were wrapped around my cock.
I felt my tongue dart across my lips again, and Astrid quickly followed it with another kiss, moaning against my lips.
“I can try,” I said against her mouth.
“Marcus!” A static-filled voice burst over the walkie near my feet.
The sudden appearance of another person’s voice scared the ever-living shit out of me as I shot into a full-standing position, nearly clipping my head on a jutting piece of wreckage.
“Marcus! They're… toward…” The rest of Chloe’s message was lost.
I turned around just in time to see a stranger clearing a tree, staring directly at me. Before I could think, I bounded into the wreckage for cover, pressing myself just inside the internal frame. The timing had been impeccable. Chloe might have just saved my life again.
I could feel the pistol meant for Astrid grinding against my lower back as I pressed against the helicopter, and reached behind me to pull it out, turning the safety off. This would be simple enough… After all, I’d done this before. How hard could it be this time?
Except this time, they know you’re there and are ready to shoot back at you.
Fuck.
“...have…” Chloe’s voice broke through the static again.
Where was she? Was she just behind the guy? Were there more guys out there?
“Marcus Upton!” Someone called out from the general direction of the man I’d spotted. His English wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t his first language, and I could hear a thick Asian accent making it a little more difficult to understand. “You come with us! We have your people!”
What?
“What!?” I asked aloud.
“Marcus,” Astrid hissed. She’d pulled herself into her cocoon as much as she could, and even I couldn’t see her from my angle. “No! If you give yourself up, he’s just going to kill her!”
They had Chloe!?
“What do you mean!?” I called out. “What people!?”
More static burst from the walkie, but I couldn’t make out any of the words. Was he lying? Why would Chloe be trying to talk to me if they caught her?
“We have the girl!” The man said. He sounded closer.
“What girl!?” I called out.
“Marcus!” Astrid hissed. “You can’t! If they capture you, they’ll kill me!”
“You can’t know that,” I half-whispered back. “They have Chloe!”
“If I can’t move, they’re going to kill me… or worse.”
“You don’t know that!” I insisted.
“Do you want to take that chance?” she hissed back.
“The girl from the helicopter! She is one of yours!”
What the fuck did that mean? Didn’t that mean Chloe!? Her face flashed through my mind’s eye. Brushing dark blonde strands of hair from her freckled face, seeing that rare smile on her. I remembered the tears falling down her cheeks last night as she confided her hurt over the pilot from the helicopter being killed Fuck… if they had her… I couldn’t just let her die!
“Astrid,” I said, “I’m not letting anything happen to Chloe.”
“If I give myself up, how do I know you won’t harm her!?”
The walkie exploded with more static, “...Marcus, they ha—”
“He’s lying,” Astrid said, desperation in her voice. “She’s fine! She’s talking to us!”
Astrid had a point. Something seemed off… like I was missing a piece of the puzzle.
“You don’t,” the man said, but if you don’t come with me, we will kill her!”
“You don’t have her,” I said. “You’re lying!”
The walkie crackled to life again, “...have Shea! They…”
The girl from the helicopter... Ryo had killed the pilot last night. What if Astrid’s people hadn’t been the only ones to check on the cabin?
Oh my God…
“Wait!” I said. “I’ll come with you!”
“Marcus!” Astrid barked. “You can’t!”
“They have Shea!”
What’s worse, Chloe thought it was urgent enough to let me know even though there was nothing I could do. What the fuck did that mean? Where was she? Still at the cabin? Sneaking up on this guy?
“We’re all dead if you turn yourself in!” Astrid pleaded.
Maybe I could buy Chloe more time. If I turned myself in, they would report my capture, and Ryo Tanaka wouldn’t have a reason to kill Shea immediately. If some of Tanaka’s men were out here, hunting me down, then maybe that would give Chloe the edge she needed to take the cabin.
As far as I could tell, it was the only way out of this whole mess, and it all hinged on Chloe doing her job.
I had to trust that she was still out there and that she knew what she was doing. I wasn’t going to be responsible for losing Shea.
I stepped away from the wreckage and just past the opening with my hands raised, stopping to stand near Astrid, between her and the approaching man. He was now standing about twenty feet from me, a rifle raised in one hand. A pair of zip tie handcuffs dangled from fingers where they gurled around the barrel of his rifle. He took another step toward me.
“I’ll go with you,” I said, turning to face him fully. I could see Astrid’s blonde head just inside my peripheral vision. “I need you to promise me no harm will come to any of my people.”
The man approached another five feet, but didn’t respond. Movement caught my eye, and I glanced just over his shoulder. Fuck… he’d brought company. There was another mercenary, twenty-five feet behind the man with the handcuffs.
Wait… since I wasn’t fighting, that was a good thing, right? The more men hunting me down meant less at the cabin.
Please tell me you’ve got this, Chloe.
The man was now less than ten feet from me. He halted. “We will not harm anyone if you come with.”
He took his hand off the stock to toss the handcuffs at my feet. As he did so, the gun barrel wavered off me and to my left.
“Okay,” I started to say. “I’ll put these—”
I felt something grab at my waist and looked down just in time to see Astrid curling her fingers around the grip of the pistol still tucked into my front. In one swift motion that would have made Chloe proud, she cleared the barrel, took swift aim at the mercenary, and unloaded three shots in quick succession—two in his chest and then one through the man’s head, just above his left eye.
I stared in horror as the man’s barrel started to train on me, but then went wild as several shots fired in rapid succession. His eyes unfocused as he began to crumple to the ground.
Then, everything happened at once.
I heard her scream. I heard multiple men shouting. More shots were fired.
“Fuck!” I bellowed and dove back into the helicopter wreckage for cover. I heard something whizz by my head that sounded like hornets whizzing past me. There was the sound of metal against metal. More shots were fired that I couldn’t see as I retreated into the safety of the helicopter, scrambling to pick up the pistol I had laid down.
More gunfire tore through the air, and I watched in horror as several holes were punched through the hull of the wreckage, daylight spilling in through them like spotlights tearing through a dark theater.
I cursed. I yelled. Lying on my belly as bullets punched through the helicopter’s hull all around me, I spat obscenities in Astrid’s direction as if they were bullets themselves.
The deafening sound of gunfire swallowed all of them.
I was terrified that Shea’s death warrant had just been signed. Afraid that Chloe was a distance away that might as well have been halfway around the world. Scared that this derelict would be my final resting place. Furious at Astrid for carelessly throwing away what I thought was our best chance.
Most of what I felt was that last one.
Whatever affection I had for her had disappeared with the first shot fired. Astrid had lit the fuse to a powder keg, and we were all going to fucking die. I seriously didn’t know how I would get out of this.
Seriously… Chloe’s been around for fucking days, and now that she was gone, this is the moment they decided to attack?
Only that wasn’t true, was it? Chloe hadn’t been around most of the time. She'd been away for the last several days, trying to create the best opportunity for us to get out of here.
We both knew that she couldn’t have been around me twenty-four/seven. That would have likely ended with us never getting out of here. That’s why she showed me how to use a gun… how to carry it. She’d insisted I become familiar with it.
Not only that, but after the kidnapping, I hired Tara for physical and martial arts training, and I had told Chloe that I wanted to learn to shoot. I’d been consistent with my workouts and lessons with Tara but failed to follow through with lessons on Chloe. It required being stranded in the forest to get her to give me a few rudimentary lessons in operating a firearm.
Why would I need all that if I could rely on my security team to protect me one hundred percent of the time?
Because you can’t rely on anyone one hundred percent of the time, you dolt! That’s why you got Tara in the first place!
I felt shame that I hadn’t taken my training more seriously, so I made another promise to myself: If I got out of here in one piece, I would dedicate more time to it and take it seriously.
This was the second time people had come gunning for me. It likely wouldn’t be the last. It was time to put at least a little more of my safety in my own hands.
That didn’t mean I’d completely ignored my training, though. I was much more physically capable than I had been two months ago. I was more agile and strong. And while I wasn’t a black belt or anything, I had stayed relatively consistent with my training. If I fought pre-inheritence Marcus, I would kick that guy’s ass.
These guys weren’t pre-inheritance Marcus, though.
All of a sudden, silence filled the air.
No more shots were fired.
Astrid wasn’t shooting back. Or yelling.
Stewing on my regret, I’d grown quiet as well.
It was eerie after experiencing an onslaught of sound that had annihilated my eardrums moments earlier. It was like leaving a loud bar and getting in your quiet car. The silence was so encompassing that I could almost feel it press in all around me.
And then I heard someone in the distance murmur in Japanese.
Someone else shouted from a different direction. Then I heard a thump against the side of the helicopter.
The moment was so tense… so quiet that I could hear my heart beating in my ears, and every breath sounded like giant sheets of sandpaper scraping over each other. I tried to rein in my need for oxygen, but gut-wrenching terror threatened to suffocate me.
I carefully pressed a palm to the ground and dared to look over my shoulder in the direction I thought the thump had come from. Encased in an aluminum tomb, I couldn’t see shit.
At least, not at first.
But then, I noticed it. Those beams of light poured through bullet holes—some flickered, the light fading before returning. Then another couple did the same, dimming as something stepped in front of them. Someone was walking alongside the helicopter.
I carefully and quietly pushed myself to my feet, careful not to shift any debris and alert my hunter to my presence. A glance toward the other side of the plan didn’t tell me anything. Too much debris was blocking the rest of the helicopter, including Astrid’s cocoon of wreckage.
Pressing myself up against the side of the helicopter, I deliberated what to do next. My mind’s eye imagined the hunter on the other side of that thin sheet of metal peering through the bullet holes to try and locate my body, ready to shoot me at any sign of danger.
More lights flickered and remained dim, suggesting that he had stopped where he was. Had he noticed something?
I raised my gun and aimed it in Hunter’s vague direction, ready to pull the trigger at a moment’s notice.
Someone shouted in Japanese again. It sounded like a question.
Hunter replied, his voice so close that I almost jumped and blew my cover. It was also in Japanese and sounded frustrated.
Then he began to move again, the holes right next to me dimming to announce his approach, and Hunter halted in front of them.
And I knew… this was it.
I quietly twisted around to face the hull and pressed the gun barrel carefully against the aluminum.
My hunter spoke again. This time, he was the one asking the questions.
I pulled the trigger. Twice.
And then I dove for the ground, landing on my stomach and squirming around so that I could train my pistol on the wreckage doorway.
Another hailstorm of bullets ripped through the chopper, scaring the shit out of me.
I groaned through gritted teeth and kept my head low, trying to make myself as small as possible. I didn’t yell, though.
Another two shots rang from Astrid, confirming that she was alive. I heard a scream in the distance and saw sparks fly around the heiress’s general vicinity as she suddenly received all the attention.
The helicopter was starting to resemble a piece of paper after ten minutes in the hands of a kindergartener with a hole punch. If Tanaka’s mercenaries kept this up, I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d actually be able to use the wreckage as cover. There was a lot I didn’t know—how many of them were out there? Where were they located? How much ammunition did they have?
Judging by the amount of shooting they were doing, it was infinite ammo.
The shooting died down. This time, there was no one quietly sneaking near the helicopter. Instead, I heard someone shout in Japanese. It sounded accusatory and challenging. I didn’t need to understand to get the message—they wanted me to come out with my hands up.
That wasn’t happening. We’d already killed two or three of their guys, and I felt that the window of opportunity to solve this with diplomacy had closed when the first merc took Astrid’s wrath in the chest.
I felt the heat of my anger toward Astrid flare up again—not just toward her, but also myself. I had let her get too close, and she used that proximity to do whatever the hell she wanted without any regard for me or my people. Or her people, for that matter. She wasn’t the only one on that chopper, after all.
The quiet was starting to reach a level of discomfort that I couldn’t take. They still had to be out there… why weren’t any of them saying anything? How long were they going to remain out there?
Maybe that wasn’t the right question. Maybe the right question was how long I could stay here.
Knowing that I couldn’t stay, I took a page out of Chloe’s book and decided to go the route of ‘sooner rather than later.’ I slowly crept forward, carefully choosing spots to place my hands and knees as I inched across the chaotic wreckage. Step-by-step, I got closer to the opening, and I found myself involuntarily holding my breath more than once in anticipation of seeing a mercenary spring around the corner and gun me down.
That wasn’t the surprise I received when I got within a couple of feet of the door, though. A flash of movement caught my eye from the other side of the piece of wreckage that held Astrid. A mercenary peered around the edge, looking past the obstacle as he spotted me. He immediately trained his rifle in my direction, but didn’t fire. Instead, he shouted in Japanese, making it sound like an order.
As far as I was concerned, it was over. I immediately pointed the gun on the air and took my finger off the trigger in hopes that he would get the message that I wasn’t a threat and prepared to stand up.
He stepped around the crumpled bit of wreckage to approach me.
And took three bullets in the neck and head for his trouble.
I have no idea why he did it. Maybe they hadn’t figured out exactly what the situation with Astrid was, and my presence as an armed person surrendering lowered his guard enough that he hadn’t spied Astrid as he passed.
Whatever it was, it hardly mattered.
What did matter was the automatic rifle lying mere feet from me.
The dead guy’s buddies had to be ready to open fire at the first sign of movement, but I seriously contemplated making a play for it.
And then a second mercenary stepped into my line of vision… facing away from me.
He had his rifle trained on the debris where Astrid was, and my priority suddenly shifted. I sprang to my feet, aimed the pistol at the back of the newcomer’s head, and fired a single shot that punched a hole the size of my fist in the back bottom half of his head.
His body tumbled forward and collapsed across Astrid’s little cavern. The gun he’d been intending to use clattered across part of Astrid’s makeshift home before being pinned by its owner’s body with the barrel sticking up at a weird angle. I had just enough time to see the gun barrel wiggle a little before slipping inside Astrid’s hole and made a mental note to myself to ask her how the fuck she was managing so well while having an injured leg pinned under helicopter debris. The woman clearly had some kind of extensive training.
I hit the floor and skittered away from the opening as several more rounds went off around the space where the mercenary and I had been standing seconds before.
What was that? Four? Five dead? How many more of them could there be?
Another shout, and the gunfire died off.
Someone else shouted something I couldn’t understand. There was a quick exchange and then silence.
Half lounging on my back and trying to breathe as quietly as possible, I leaned forward to try and peer through one of the bullet holes to figure out what they were doing.
Please, please, please just give up and go home.
Something that sounded like a rock hitting the metal hull of the wreckage made me jump away from the wall, and I looked around wildly just in time to see an object settle on the ground. For a second, I thought that’s what it was, but something about it looked too… perfect. Too… artificial.
There it was—a dark green cylinder.
Please, God, don’t let that be a grenade.
There was a hiss, and dark smoke began pouring out of one end.
I felt my entire body go numb.
They were smoking me out.
“Fuck!” I slid further away from the smoke, looking around wildly for something—anything—that could help. Unfortunately, the helicopter’s shell had remained mainly intact. The passenger doors on either side were the only way into the largest section. Astrid’s side was the only one that remained large enough to climb in and out of… the other side was mostly blocked off.
I was stuck.
Scurrying further from the smoke, I still looked around for anything useful. I could hide in the smoke, but I couldn’t shoot anyone I couldn’t see. And if I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t shoot anyone at all.
My nostrils suddenly filled with the smell of something acrid and oily, and the heat jumped several degrees inside the wreckage. The smoke was rolling closer to me.
I leaned against the wall and put my mouth against several bullet holes, getting a whiff of cleaner air. Fear of getting shot mingled with a deep-seated desire to breathe and a curiosity to see what everyone was doing. I tried to peer through one of the bullet holes and spotted one man crouching low as he scurried toward the helicopter, gun raised.
Then I was forced to blink as tears began to fill my eyes. Despite myself, I coughed and inhaled a lungful of what might as well have been tar.
“Fuck!” I half yelled, half choked and beat at the air as I crawled to my feet and made my way blindly back toward the opening. They had me… There wasn’t anything I could do to—
Gunfire erupted, and since bullets didn’t immediately perforate me, I was sure they had found Astrid and that she had been proven right. She wasn’t me, therefore, she was expendable.
I coughed again. And a third time as I stumbled forward, seeing the light shift a little brighter in intensity as I tried to squint through tears.
More gunfire.
Shouting.
Even more gunfire and several screams… none of them were feminine.
What the fuck was happening?
I felt blessed cool air as I stumbled out of the helicopter and into what sounded like a slaughterhouse. Gunfire was erupting all around me, and I immediately dropped to my stomach as I reached up with one fist to scrub at my eyes with the heel of one hand, while I got my pistol up and in front of me with the other.
Blinking away the tears and trying to orient myself as quickly as possible, the first thing I saw was a dead Japanese mercenary in front of me. One of his eyes was missing. In fact, about three or four inches of his face where his eye used to be was missing.
I let out a strangled, coughing cry and rolled away from the body, looking around for anyone else… any sign of movement.
Then I noticed that the gunfire had stopped. There were people still shouting, and I heard heavy footsteps.
“Easy, Marcus!” A familiar voice said. A voice I wasn’t sure I would ever hear again.
I rolled over and pointed my pistol in the direction of the voice, still trying to fight back tears.
Henry Psalter stood in front of me, his hand raised in a placating gesture. His lips were compressed in a thin line, and his dark, leathery face was creased in concern like a worn dollar bill.
“Take it easy, son,” Psalter said. His voice was more placating than anything else. He was trying to calm a man who had a gun pointed at him. “You’re safe, now.”
I glanced at some of the other men spread out around us—men dressed very differently from Tanaka’s. All of Ryo’s mercenaries appeared dead. There were easily between eight and ten of them? How many did that leave at the cabin? Had Ryo gambled all his men on this raid?
I flipped the safety back on my pistol and let it slip free from my hands as I collapsed back on the ground, my entire body going limp. Another cough erupted, and I realized how much my fucking throat burned—like I’d gargled a mouthful of wood shavings.
I laughed, despite the pain, and my laugh turned into another gurgling cough… which eventually turned into a laugh again.
I was safe. And if the body count added up, maybe Chloe and Shea were, too.
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Book II is now underway, with Chapters 1–22 already available. 9 bonus chapters for Book II are also available, including some of the events mentioned in this chapter.