Chapter 25 - The Searing Mud
I didn't count to ten.
My body moved on pure, primal instinct—the survival reflex of a mother protecting her cubs. I scrambled over the center console into the driver’s seat, shoved the gear shift into reverse, and slammed my foot hard onto the gas pedal.
The sedan lurched backward, spinning its tires in the slick Louisiana mud, spraying wet earth and gravel toward the advancing mercenaries.
Through the rear window, I saw Adrian. He had taken cover behind the rusted sheet-metal shed, returning fire with disciplined, lethal precision. Two of the mercenaries stumbled and hit the ground, but the remaining two flanked him, their weapons trained on his position.
“Mommy, look out!” Emma screamed from the back seat.
I whipped the steering wheel around, slamming the car into drive, and aimed the heavy Ford directly at the second mercenary who was creeping toward Adrian’s flank. The headlights caught the man’s eyes widening in shock just a fraction of a second before the bumper slammed into his tactical vest, sending him flying through the air into a patch of sawgrass.
Adrian turned sharply, firing his last round into the final mercenary’s shoulder, dropping the man to his knees in the mud.
Silence descended upon the clearing, broken only by the hissing radiator of our battered sedan and the heavy panting of the Louisiana night wind.
Adrian sprinted across the clearing, throwing open the driver’s side door. His face was streaked with mud and sweat, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Are you hit?” he demanded, his hands gripping my shoulders, scanning my body for injuries.
“I’m fine! Are you?”
“I’m fine,” Adrian muttered, his voice trembling slightly as he pulled me into a fierce, suffocating embrace for three seconds before breaking away. He looked back at the fallen mercenaries. “They weren't local thugs. They were Zurich contractors. That means the man pulling the strings is closer than we thought.”
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“Who?”
“Marcus Vance,” Adrian said grimly, the name dropping like a lead weight into the swamp water. “Your father’s old partner at the federal prosecutor’s office. The man who supposedly retired to Switzerland ten years ago.”
