Chapter 4 - The Price of Blood
The blowout was loud enough to sound like a bomb going off.
The heavy SUV pitched sharply to the right, its heavy-duty run-flat tires shredding as the vehicle spun out of control on the wet asphalt. Ava braced herself, pulling Lily tightly into her lap and tucking the toddler’s head under her shoulder.
The SUV smashed through the highway guardrail, metal screaming against concrete, before tumbling down a steep grassy embankment and slamming to a halt against a cluster of mesquite trees.
Inside, the airbags deployed with a deafening pop.
Coughing through the white chemical smoke, Ava squeezed her eyes open. Her body throbbed with pain, but Lily was unhurt, whimpering softly in her arms. Beside her, Roman was already active. His face was streaked with dark blood from a cut along his hairline, but his movements were terrifyingly precise.
He kicked the jammed passenger door open with a single, brutal force of his boot.
“Out. Now,” he ordered, reaching in and lifting both Ava and Lily out of the wrecked vehicle in one fluid motion.
The night was dark, heavy with rain, and the scrubland surrounding the highway smelled of damp earth and sulfur. Above them, on the edge of the shattered highway guardrail, two sets of headlights cut through the downpour. Footsteps began crunching down the gravel slope.
“He brought six men,” Roman muttered, checking his weapon’s magazine. “I have eight rounds left.”
“We need to run!” Ava whispered, her voice trembling.
“You can’t outrun a bullet in an open field, girl,” Roman said, turning to look at her through the dark. He reached out and grabbed her hand, shoving something cold and metal into her palm. It was a small, high-caliber Derringer pistol. “Do you know how to use this?”
“No! I’ve never held a gun in my life!”
“You point the small end at whatever frightens you and pull the curve,” Roman said grimly. “If they get past me, you do not let Julian take you alive. If he takes you, he forces you to sign a renunciation of the Garza estate, and then he puts you in the ground next to your mother.”
Ava’s throat felt bone-dry. “Why are you doing this? If Lily isn't your real daughter... why do you still hold her like that?”
Roman paused, looking down at the small child clinging to his trousers. For the first time, the stone-cold billionaire looked human.
“I raised her for three years,” Roman said softly. “She may not have my blood, Ava... but she is my daughter. And you... you have my blood. I lost your mother. I will not lose either of you tonight.”
Footsteps slammed closer through the brush.
“Roman!” a polished, mocking voice called out from the darkness. “Give it up! The board of directors has already convened an emergency meeting for nine o'clock tomorrow morning. If you aren't there with a verified biological heir and a clean DNA profile, the proxy votes automatically trigger the transfer!”
Roman stepped out from behind the wreckage of the SUV, stepping directly into the beams of the flashlights coming down the hill.
“Julian!” Roman called back, his baritone voice cutting through the sound of rain. “You always were sloppy. You left the nurse alive.”
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Silence hung over the scrubland for a heartbeat.
Then Julian’s voice cracked through the rain, sharp and stripped of its polish: “Kill them all. Leave no one.”
