Chapter 8 - Safehouse 9
The screams started instantly.
Gunfire ripped through the dark—three sharp, suppressed pops from the balcony above. Adrian moved before the first bullet hit the floor. In one fluid motion, his arm hooked around my waist, lifting me off my feet as he threw his body over mine, slamming us behind a marble support pillar.
The concrete above our heads exploded into dust as high-caliber rounds chipped the stone.
“Stay down!” Adrian barked, drawing a matte-black Glock from beneath his tuxedo jacket.
“Way ahead of you!” I shrieked, pressing my back against the cold marble, clutching the hem of my ruined emerald dress.
Through the chaos, Julian appeared out of the darkness like a ghost, a submachine gun raised in his hands. “East exit is compromised! Marcone’s men have the street blocked!”
“The kitchen tunnels,” Adrian ordered, returning fire with three precise shots that dropped a silhouette descending the service stairs. “Get the car around to the freight dock. Now!”
Adrian grabbed my hand. “Run.”
We ran.
Through swinging double doors, past overturned carts of food, screaming kitchen staff, and shattered plates. The high heels were impossible; on the third step, I kicked them off, running barefoot across the wet kitchen tiles, my hand locked in Adrian’s iron grip. He didn't let go. Not when another volley of gunfire chewed through the drywall behind us. Not when we burst through the loading dock doors into the freezing Chicago rain.
A black armored SUV slid to a halt on the wet pavement, Julian behind the wheel.
Adrian shoved me into the backseat, dived in after me, and slammed the heavy door just as bullets peppered the reinforced glass with dull *thuds*.
“Go!” Adrian roared.
The SUV lurched forward, tires smoking as Julian tore onto the highway, leaving the Drake Hotel behind in a storm of sirens and smoke.
Two hours later, we were thirty miles north of the city, pulling into a concealed driveway surrounded by dense pine trees. A modern, minimalist glass-and-stone house sat perched on the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan, completely hidden from the road.
Safehouse 9.
Inside, the lights flickered on automatically. Adrian shrugged out of his soaked tuxedo jacket, tossing it onto a leather sofa. His white shirt was torn, blood staining his left shoulder where a splinter of marble had grazed him.
I collapsed onto the sofa, my breath coming in ragged gasps, trembling from the cold and the adrenaline.
Adrian walked over to a cabinet, poured two fingers of amber bourbon into a glass, and knelt down in front of me. He took my freezing hands in his, pressing the warm glass between my palms.
“Drink it,” he commanded softly.
I took a sip. It burned like fire, but it stopped my teeth from chattering.
“You’re bleeding,” I said, pointing at his shoulder.
“It’s a scratch.”
“You almost died tonight, Adrian. Twice.”
Adrian looked up at me through dark, shadowed eyes. The rain lashed against the panoramic windows overlooking the black, churning lake. In the silence of the safehouse, the distance between us felt nonexistent.
“I’ve lived with death at my throat since I was sixteen, Maya,” he said quietly, his thumb brushing over my bare, rain-chilled knee where the dress had torn open. “Tonight is the first time someone stood in front of the blade for me.”
My throat tightened. “I told you. I have a smart mouth and bad instincts.”
May you like
“No,” Adrian whispered, leaning closer, his gaze dropping to my lips. “You have courage. And in my world, that is the rarest thing alive.”
***