Chapter 147 Shots fired
Glass shattered in a spray of glittering fragments, showering down like deadly rain. The sound of gunfire erupted simultaneously—sharp, percussive cracks that seemed to come from everywhere at once. So loud it was disorienting, so loud it made my ears ring and my vision blur.
I heard Matt shouting from the kitchen
"Get down! GET DOWN!"and Greyson screaming my name, but it all seemed distant, muffled by the chaos and the adrenaline suddenly flooding my system.
Instinct should have kicked in. Should have made me drop to the floor, should have made me seek cover, should have made me do anything other than stand there frozen like a doe in headlights.
I was too stunned. Too overwhelmed by the sudden shift from emotional confrontation to life-threatening violence. My brain couldn't process it, couldn't switch gears fast enough.
I felt something punch into my side. Hard and hot and wrong. Like someone had shoved a burning poker between my ribs.
I looked down, confused, and saw red spreading across my white sweater. So much red. The white fabric darkening to crimson, the blood seeping through so fast it looked like someone had thrown paint on me. Like I was an art project gone wrong.
"CASSIE!" Greyson's voice cut through the chaos, sharp with terror.
I saw him pull a gun from somewhere—when had he gotten a gun? Why did he have a gun?—and return fire through the broken window. His movements were smooth, practiced, nothing like the lawyer I thought I knew. Matt appeared from the kitchen, also armed, taking up a position by the other window. They moved with a coordination that spoke of training, of experience, of a shared understanding I'd never known existed.
I couldn't focus on that. Couldn't focus on anything except the spreading red on my sweater and the pain that was starting to build in my side. Sharp and burning and intensifying with every heartbeat.
"I thought you ducked!" Greyson was screaming, his voice breaking with panic. He was moving toward me even as bullets continued to tear through the living room, punching holes in the walls, shattering picture frames, destroying everything in their path. "Cassie, I thought you ducked! Why didn't you duck?!"
I hadn't ducked. I'd been too focused on him, too caught up in that moment of almost-forgiveness, almost-reconciliation. Too distracted by emotion to react when survival demanded it... now I was paying for it.
My legs gave out. Just stopped working, like someone had cut the strings on a marionette. I felt myself falling, saw the floor rushing up to meet me, knew it was going to hurt when I landed.
But I didn't land. Greyson caught me before I hit, cradling me against his chest, his hands immediately pressing against my side trying to stop the bleeding. His hands came away red. So much red.
"No, no, no, no," he was chanting, his voice breaking on every syllable. "Cassie, stay with me. Stay with me, baby. Don't you dare leave me. Not like this. Not now. Matt! MATT! Call 911!"
"Already called!" Matt shouted back, firing another round through the window. The return fire had stopped—either they'd driven the shooters off or they'd accomplished what they came for. "Ambulance is on the way! Five minutes out!"
Five minutes. I tried to tell them that five minutes might be too long, that there was so much blood, that I could feel it pumping out of me with every beat of my heart. But the words wouldn't come. My mouth wouldn't work right. Everything was getting fuzzy around the edges, the sharp clarity of panic giving way to a strange, floating detachment.
"Look at me," Greyson demanded, his face hovering above mine. His eyes were wild, terrified, wet with tears that were falling onto my face like rain. "Cassie, look at me. Focus on my voice. Stay awake. You have to stay awake."
I tried. I really did. But the darkness was so inviting, and I was so tired. So tired of fighting, of being strong, of holding everything together, of being Richard Hunter's perfect daughter and Hunter Maritime's youngest executive and the woman who never showed weakness.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, though I wasn't sure what I was apologizing for. For getting shot? For coming here? For loving him in the first place? For not being strong enough to survive this?
"Don't," he said fiercely, his voice raw with emotion. "Don't apologize. Don't you dare apologize. This is my fault. All of it. The men outside, they must have been watching the house, must have seen you come in, must have recognized you from that article. They knew you didn't belong here. Knew you were connected, important, valuable. And they came for you, Cassie, I'm so sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. This is all my fault. I love you too..."
The gunfire had stopped completely now. The silence was almost worse than the noise had been—heavy and oppressive and full of terrible implications. Either Matt and Greyson had driven them off, or they'd accomplished what they came for.
Me.
They'd come for me.
I could hear sirens in the distance, getting closer. The wail of ambulances and police cars, the cavalry arriving too late. Matt was shouting something about pressure points and keeping me awake and where the hell was that ambulance. Greyson was crying, tears falling on my face as he begged me to hold on, to stay with him, to not leave him alone.
Matt get me towels and Alcohol, the medical bag too five minutes is too long The darkness was winning. It was pulling me under, gentle and insistent, like a tide I couldn't fight. My vision was tunneling, the world narrowing to just Greyson's face above mine. His terrified eyes. His tears. His mouth moving, saying words I could no longer hear.
My last coherent thought before everything went black was that I'd finally found out what Greyson looked like when he was genuinely afraid. When he was facing the possibility of losing something that mattered more than his ego or his pride or his wounded feelings.
It looked like love.
Real, desperate, all-consuming love.
And then there was nothing.