Chapter 8 - The Price of Freedom
A heavy armored SUV smashed directly through the grand entryway’s reinforced glass doors, spraying shrapnel, timber, and marble across the foyer.
Julian dropped me in shock. I hit the floor, coughing violently, gasping for air as the front of the vehicle slammed to a halt in the center of the ballroom.
The driver’s side door was kicked off its hinges.
Dominic Mercer stepped out of the wreckage.
He looked like the devil incarnate. His suit jacket was gone, his white shirt soaked in blood that wasn't his own, and an automatic assault rifle rested against his hip. Behind him, Frank and half a dozen elite operatives poured through the breach, their weapons blazing with deadly, rhythmic efficiency.
"Mercer!" Julian screamed, drawing his pistol.
Dominic didn't dive for cover. He advanced like an unstoppable machine of war.
A mercenary tried to flank him; Dominic raised his rifle with one hand and fired three rounds without breaking his stride, dropping the man instantly. Frank’s team swept the mezzanine, eliminating Julian’s remaining guards in a matter of seconds.
Julian realized he was completely outmatched. His eyes darted frantically toward the terrace doors, but I was already moving.
Pain or no pain, I launched myself off the floor.
I tackled Julian from behind, driving my shoulder into his kidneys. We crashed into the shattered remains of a glass display case. Julian roared in rage, swinging his elbow back and catching my injured ribs.
Agony tore through my chest, forcing a scream from my throat, but I locked my arms around his neck, dragging him backward into the debris.
"Get off me, you bitch!" Julian shrieked, clawing at my face.
He broke my grip and raised his pistol, aiming it directly between my eyes.
"Goodbye, Elena—"
A deafening gunshot echoed through the hall.
Julian’s eyes widened in shock. A single red circle bloomed in the center of his forehead. The pistol slipped from his nerveless fingers, clattering onto the floorboards.
He collapsed forward, dead before he hit the ground.
Standing five feet away, lowering his smoking sidearm, was Dominic.
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the crackle of burning embers and the heavy, ragged sound of my breathing.
Dominic dropped his weapon. He crossed the floor in two strides, dropped to his knees in the broken glass, and pulled me violently into his arms.
"Elena," he choked out, his voice cracked with raw, unbridled terror. His hands shook as he framed my face, checking my neck, my ribs, my forehead, pulling me against his chest with a fierce, trembling desperation. "Elena. Look at me. Are you hit? Did he shoot you?"
"I'm fine," I gasped, burying my face in the curve of his neck, breathing in the scent of rain, gunpowder, and him. "I'm fine... Dominic, Caleb is in the vault. He’s safe. The override held."
Dominic let out a shuddering, broken breath against my hair. He buried his face in my neck, holding me so tightly I could feel the frantic, wild pounding of his heart against mine.
"I didn't care about the docks," he whispered, his voice thick with an emotion the cold, untouchable crime lord had never shown to another living soul. "The second the feed went dark, I burned the entire harbor to the ground to get back to you."
Tears slipped down my cheeks—not tears of fear or pain, but of profound, overwhelming release.
The ghost that had chased me across eight years, across thousands of miles, across four fake identities, was dead on the floor.
I was no longer running.
"It's over," I whispered, reaching up to touch Dominic’s blood-spattered jaw. "It's finally over."
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Dominic lifted his head, his silver eyes blazing with fierce, unconditional devotion. He leaned down and kissed me—a deep, slow, reverent kiss that sealed the end of our war and the beginning of something neither of us had ever dared to dream of.
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