Chapter 18 Fire and blood
The shot echoed across the fog-shrouded dock, sharp and deafening. Lucy’s stomach lurched as her eyes darted between Mercer’s men and Lucas, who moved with a lethal precision that made every second stretch impossibly long.
Guns flashed in the floodlight, but Lucas didn’t hesitate.
His hand found Lucy’s, gripping it tightly, anchoring her even as the bullets splintered the wood and metal around them.
“Stay close!” he barked, voice low and fierce.
Lucy’s heart hammered.
She tried to pull back, tried to insist she could help, but Lucas shook his head, eyes blazing.
“You trust me. Now. No heroics.”
She swallowed the fear clenching her chest. I do, she thought, though the fog of danger made her feel as fragile as glass.
Mercer’s men advanced, but Lucas moved like a shadow of destruction—every step precise, every movement a calculated strike.
One man fell to the side, clutching his shoulder, another went down as Lucas disarmed him with brutal efficiency.
Lucy watched, frozen, her stomach twisting at the raw, controlled violence.
She knew Lucas was terrifyingly skilled, but seeing it in action made her realize something terrifying about herself: she didn’t just fear for him. She feared how much she needed him alive.
Mercer stepped forward, gun raised, his calmness like oil over fire. “You really think you can stop me?”
Lucas didn’t answer.
He lunged, closing the distance with impossible speed.
He knocked the gun from Mercer’s hand and slammed him against a crate, forcing the man to the ground.
His hands were tight around Mercer’s throat, yet his eyes never left Lucy’s.
“Back off,” Lucas growled, his voice low, lethal.
“Touch her, and you won’t walk away.”
Mercer laughed, a short, sharp sound that didn’t mask fear. “So predictable, Bravata. You always protect what’s yours.”
Lucas’s jaw flexed. “And I always win.”
With a swift movement, Mercer’s men hesitated—and in that instant, Lucas spun Mercer to face him, driving a knee into his stomach.
Mercer crumpled, gasping, and the dock erupted in chaos as the remaining men tried to recover.
Lucy barely had time to breathe before Lucas grabbed her hand, yanking her behind him as he engaged the closest attackers.
“Run if you have to!” he barked over the gunfire.
She shook her head. “I’m not leaving you!”
“You have to!” he shouted. His eyes locked on hers, burning with command and desperation. “I will find you again! But if I have to fight and protect you, you won’t survive!”
Her chest ached.
But she let him pull her, stumbling behind him as he ducked and spun, taking down two men with a single sweep of his arm.
Emily, still tied to the chair, whimpered, and Lucas’s gaze flicked toward hers "Emily!” he barked. “Help her!”
The soldiers positioned around him rushed to untie Emily while Lucas created a shield with his body, every movement a blur of calculated violence.
Then Mercer tried to rise, gun in hand.
Lucas’s voice was ice. “I told you… don’t.”
Before Mercer could react, Lucas disarmed him, slammed him to the ground, and pressed a knee against his chest.
“Consider this your last warning,” Lucas said. His voice was calm, terrifying. “One more move, and you won’t live to regret it.”
Mercer’s eyes widened. He knew he was beaten.
Lucas glanced at Lucy, who was trembling but alive.
He nodded slightly. “Go to her. Now.”
Lucy ran forward, untangling Emily from the chair.
The two girls clung together as Lucas kept Mercer pinned under his knee, gun pointed at the remaining men who now hesitated, frozen by fear.
Finally, the last gunman dropped his weapon, seeing the futility. Silence fell across the dock except for Lucy’s ragged breaths and Emily’s shaky sobs.
Lucas released Mercer, stepping back but keeping his gaze locked on him. “Get out,” he said, voice low. “And don’t ever come near her—or me—again.”
Mercer scrambled to his feet, defeated, and disappeared into the fog.
Lucas’s shoulders slumped as he finally allowed himself to exhale.
Lucy ran into his arms, clinging as if the world had just stopped spinning.
“I thought I lost you,” she whispered.
“You didn’t,” he murmured, holding her tight. “And you never will. Not if I can help it.”
She pressed her forehead to his chest, listening to his heartbeat, trying to memorize that steady, unyielding rhythm.
“You scared me,” she admitted softly.
“I’ll always protect you,” he said. “Always.”
The fog swirled around them, the docks silent now except for the distant lapping of water. Two lives tethered together, battered and bloody, but unbroken.
Lucas kissed the top of her head. “We’re not done. Mercer’s network is still out there. But right now… right now, you’re safe. And that’s all that matters.”
Lucy held onto him tightly, finally letting herself believe it.
For the first time in years, she didn’t have to fight alone.
And she wouldn’t.