Chapter 195 Marcus Took the Sniper Bullet
He hit the side of the armored car and slid to the dirt.
"Marcus!" I screamed.
My voice tore. The Chairman vanished. Only a terrified woman remained.
A Johnston guard unleashed a burst of rifle fire toward the catwalk. The sniper fell.
I scrambled across the leather seat. I reached out and grabbed Marcus’s tactical vest. "Help me!" I yelled to the driver.
The driver reached back. Together, we hauled Marcus's heavy frame into the vehicle. The door slammed shut.
"Drive!" I ordered.
The SUV reversed, tires spinning on the loose dirt and broken glass. We launched out of the mill, the engine roaring as we hit the broken pavement of the eastern sector.
I fell to my knees on the floorboard.
Marcus lay across the backseat. His eyes were open, wide and unfocused. Blood saturated the black fabric of his tactical vest. He took the round high in the chest, right in the gap between the ceramic plates.
"Look at me," I said. My hands shook. I pressed both palms hard against the wound. "Marcus, look at me."
Hot, thick blood spilled over my fingers. It soaked into the sleeves of my suit. It felt like fire.
Marcus let out a ragged gasp. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth.
"Told you," Marcus ground out. His voice was a wet whisper. "Death trap."
"Save your breath," I told him. Tears blurred my vision. I blinked them away. I pressed harder against the torn flesh. "Call Diego! Tell him to clear the trauma bay at the private clinic! Now!"
The driver barked orders into the radio.
I kept my eyes on Marcus. His skin turned a terrifying shade of gray. The stoic, unbreakable wall of a man crumbled under my hands.
The city streets blurred past the tinted windows. We left the decaying architecture of the eastern sector behind, but the rot stayed with us inside the car. The smell of copper and sweat filled the confined space.
I pressed my palms against his chest. I felt the erratic, failing beat of his heart beneath the ruined muscle. Every jolt of the vehicle sent a fresh wave of blood over my hands.
"Apply pressure," the driver shouted, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror. "We are five minutes from the clinic."
"I am trying!" I yelled back.
My arms ached. My wrists burned from the force I used to keep his blood inside his body. Marcus saved my life. He shoved me behind the steel frame of the SUV, trading his body for mine. He stood between me and a sniper’s bullet because I was too stubborn to listen to reason.
I remembered the argument with Tristan in the penthouse. I remembered the desperation in my husband's eyes when he begged me not to go. They extort. They bleed you. If you go to the eastern sector, you give them the leverage they crave.
He knew. He spent years operating in these shadows. He knew the cost of a mistake.
I played the arrogant CEO. I believed my title offered me protection. I believed the rules applied everywhere.
A low, wretched sob tore from my throat. I swallowed it down. I could not fall apart. Not while Marcus bled out in front of me.
"You are not dying today," I ordered. "That is a command from the Chairman. Do you hear me?"
Marcus offered a faint, bloody smile. His eyelids drooped.
"Hold the perimeter," he mumbled.
His head rolled to the side. He went still.
"Marcus!" I screamed. I shook his good shoulder. "Marcus, wake up!"
He did not move.
I pressed my hands against his chest, fighting the endless tide of blood. My lungs burned. The armored car tore through the city streets, but it felt like we crawled.
I looked at the blood on my suit. The dark crimson soaked into the fine wool, ruining the pristine armor I wore. The Chairman who believed in clean victories died on that concrete floor, crushed under the weight of her own hubris.
A new, terrible clarity settled deep in my bones. It pushed the panic aside. It swallowed the fear, replacing it with a cold, absolute void.
Tristan wanted to take the gloves off last night. I slapped his hands away. I demanded we share the dirt, but I refused to let him dig in it. I judged him for his past, clinging to a moral high ground that almost cost my loyal protector his life.
I was wrong.
If the syndicate wanted to fight in the dark, I would give them the dark. I would tear the eastern sector apart piece by piece. I would hunt Oliver Pembroke until he had nowhere left to run. I would find the proxy using Thomas Whitmore's money, and I would rip their life away with my bare hands.