Chapter 3 - The Crossfire"Ambush! Down! Get down!"
A bodyguard’s roar cut through the chaos. Glass showered across the polished hardwood floors like glittering diamonds. Automatic gunfire ripped through the boutique, splintering the expensive oak furniture and tearing expensive cashmere blankets to shreds.
Chaos erupted in a single heartbeat.
Damian didn't hesitate. With the speed of a striking predator, he lunged across the room, tackling me to the floor just as a hail of bullets smashed into the wall directly behind where I had been standing. My breath left my lungs in a sharp gasp as we hit the floor hard, Damian shielding my body entirely with his own broad frame.
"Damian!" I cried out, terrified for the baby, terrified for us both.
"I've got you," he growled, his voice deep, calm, and terrifyingly lethal. He pulled a heavy, custom-engraved 9mm pistol from his shoulder holster with one fluid motion.
The thirty Moretti bodyguards returned fire with terrifying efficiency. The boutique instantly transformed into a war zone of deafening gunfire, shattering wood, and acrid gunsmoke. Through the smoke, I saw silhouettes moving outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The Russian syndicate. They must have tracked Damian’s motorcade here. They had been hunting him for months, and now, they had walked straight into a trap—or had walked right into our execution.
"Who sent them?" Damian snarled over the deafening roar of gunfire, keeping me pinned safely beneath him while firing three precise shots through the broken storefront window. Outside, a man dropped instantly.
"I don't know!" I yelled back, clutching my stomach instinctively as a stray bullet chipped the floor inches from my hand. "I live a quiet life! I don't keep tabs on your bloody wars!"
Damian glanced down at me, his gaze softening for a single, intense microsecond amidst the violence. "You chose a terrible place to hide, Bella. My enemies are everywhere. But nobody touches you. Do you hear me? Nobody touches my wife or my son."
Before I could process the possessive heat in his words, a massive figure vaulted through the broken window, wielding an assault rifle. It was Viktor, a high-ranking lieutenant of the Russian Bratva, grinning like a madman.
"Well, well, well!" Viktor shouted over the gunfire, aiming his weapon directly at Damian’s back. "The great Moretti king, brought low by a pregnant woman! Let's see how much your empire is worth when I paint this floor with your family's blood!"
Damian didn't even turn around. He raised his left hand, holding a secondary blade, and threw it with blinding speed.
Thwack.
The knife buried itself deep into Viktor’s throat. The Russian lieutenant choked on a gasp, dropped his rifle, and collapsed backward onto a display of imported silk pillows.
Within seconds, the remaining attackers outside were neutralized by the Moretti guard detail. Complete, eerie silence descended upon the boutique once more, broken only by the hiss of a damaged fire suppression pipe leaking water onto the floor.
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Damian slowly stood up, offering me a blood-stained, leather-gloved hand.
"Get up, Isabella," he said smoothly, though his chest was heaving. "We're going home."
