Chapter 5 - Blood and Bulletproof Glass
The twin-engine Sikorsky helicopter sliced through the freezing desert night, banking hard over the jagged, snow-dusted ridges of Mount Charleston. Below them, orange flames roared into the black sky. The reinforced entrance of the subterranean bunker had been blown wide open with military-grade C4, the heavy steel doors hanging off their hinges like twisted aluminum foil.
"RPG!" the pilot screamed through the comms.
A streak of white-hot smoke hissed out from the treeline below.
"Brace!" Marcus bellowed. He lunged across the cabin, wrapping his massive, armored body entirely around Rachel, shielding her head and torso with his own Kevlar-clad frame as the helicopter jinked violently to the left.
The rocket clipped the landing skid with a blinding flash and an ear-splitting screech of tearing metal. The helicopter lurched into a sickening spiral, alarms howling in the cockpit.
"We’re losing the tail rotor!" the pilot shouted. "Landing hard in thirty seconds!"
Marcus didn't flinch. In the flashing red interior lights, his face was carved from granite. He pressed his forehead against Rachel's, his breath hot against her cheek.
"Hold on to me," he commanded, his voice drowning out the sirens. "Don't let go, Rachel. Not for anything."
"I've got you," she gasped, burying her face into his neck, inhaling the intoxicating scent of gunpowder, cedarwood, and Marcus.
The helicopter slammed into the snowy embankment fifty yards from the bunker entrance, skidding on its side in a blizzard of pulverized snow and pine branches before grinding to a halt against a boulder.
Before the snow could even settle, Marcus kicked the emergency hatch clean off its hinges. He hauled Rachel out into the biting mountain air, his shotgun leveled in one arm, his tactical light slicing through the swirling blizzard.
Gunfire erupted immediately from the perimeter. Bullets chewed through the snow at their feet.
Marcus didn't take cover. He advanced like a demon unleashed from hell.
*BOOM! BOOM!*
The heavy 12-gauge roared twice. Two mercenaries in gray winter camouflage collapsed backward into the drifts. Diego and Marcus’s surviving men poured out of the wreckage, returning fire with synchronized, lethal military discipline, forming a moving iron wall around Rachel and Eleanor.
"Move! Inside the breach!" Marcus barked, dragging Rachel through the smoldering blast doors of the bunker.
The interior of the bunker was a nightmare. Emergency red floodlights cast eerie shadows down a long, concrete corridor littered with spent brass casings and the bodies of fallen defenders. The air was thick with the stench of cordite, blood, and burning wiring.
"Julian's men," Eleanor whispered, her aristocratic composure slipping as she looked down at the fallen guards. "They fought to the last breath."
"Julian isn't dead," Rachel said, her medical instincts kicking in as she knelt beside a wounded guard, pressing her fingers to his carotid artery. "The blood trails are moving inward. He fell back to the secondary panic room. He’s protecting Leo!"
"Move, move, move!" Marcus surged forward, clearing every corner with ruthless precision. Any hostile contractor who raised a barrel in the corridors was eliminated before they could squeeze the trigger. Marcus was an unstoppable force of nature, his lethal training on full display. This wasn't the man who needed help buttering his toast; this was the apex warlord who had ruled Nevada with an iron fist.
They reached the heavy vault door of the central panic room.
The heavy titanium lock was scorched, half-melted by thermite charges. Outside the door lay five dead Russian mercenaries—and leaning against the reinforced frame, clutching his abdomen with a blood-soaked hand, was a tall, dark-haired man holding an empty Sig Sauer.
His face was covered in grime and blood, his jaw bearing the faint burn scars of an explosion three years old. But the piercing black eyes were identical to Marcus’s.
Julian looked up. His breathing was wet, ragged, but when his eyes landed on Marcus standing tall, fully mobile, and armed to the teeth, a bloody grin spread across his face.
"Took you... long enough... big brother," Julian coughed out, dark crimson bubbling at the corner of his lips. "You always were... slow on your feet."
"Julian!" Eleanor cried out, dropping to her knees and gathering her younger son's head into her lap, heedless of the blood ruining her designer coat.
Marcus froze, his shotgun lowering an inch. For three years, he had mourned this man. For three years, guilt had eaten him alive from the inside out.
"You bastard," Marcus choked out, a raw, jagged sob catching in his throat even as his face stayed hard. "You staged your own funeral."
"Had to..." Julian whispered, his hand reaching out to weakly grab Marcus’s tactical vest. "Ward was going to poison you both... I took the boy... Marcus, listen to me..."
Julian’s eyes flickered toward the melted vault door.
"Ward got inside through the ventilation duct... twenty minutes ago," Julian wheezed, his grip slipping. "He has him, Marcus. He took Leo out through the southern drainage tunnel... he’s taking him to the airstrip."
Rachel’s world shattered. A high-pitched ringing filled her ears.
"Leo!" Rachel screamed, bolting toward the vault door.
Marcus caught her around the waist, pulling her flush against his chest as she fought him like a wildcat, thrashing and sobbing in sheer motherly desperation.
"Let me go! Marcus, he has my baby! He has our son!"
"I have you!" Marcus roared into her ear, wrapping both arms around her, pinning her against him with unbreakable strength until her frantic struggles subsided into wracking sobs against his vest. He looked down into her tear-drenched, terrified eyes, his own burning with an ancient, terrifying vow.
May you like
"He will not leave this mountain with our blood," Marcus swore, his voice trembling with an icy, lethal certainty. "I am going to bring our boy home, Rachel. And I am going to tear Declan Ward apart with my bare hands."
***
