Chapter 2 - The Red Velvet Escape
The first gunshot was muffled, but the scream that followed was not.
Bishop collided with the lead gunman, his jaws clamping down on the man’s forearm with a sickening crunch. The weapon clattered to the floor. The other two gunmen panicked, swinging their barrels toward the thrashing dog.
“Bishop, down!” Lucian roared, drawing a matte-black pistol from his shoulder holster with blinding speed. He fired twice, the suppressors on his own weapon turning the shots into sharp, lethal coughs. Two of the hitmen crumpled to the floor, blood pooling on the pristine white tablecloths.
But the third gunman, recovering from Bishop's attack, aimed directly at Lucian’s exposed back.
Mara didn’t think. Her body moved on pure, buried instinct.
With a fluid grace that belonged to a trained killer, not a service worker, she stepped forward, grabbed a heavy crystal decanter of 50-year-old cognac from the side table, and shattered it directly over the gunman’s head.
As the man stumbled, Mara caught his falling weapon mid-air, spun it around, and pointed it directly at his forehead. Her eyes, previously wide with terror, were now dead, cold, and entirely focused.
“Don’t move,” she said. Her voice wasn’t shaking anymore. It was flat. Lethal.
Lucian turned, his gun raised, only to stop dead in his tracks. He stared at Mara, who was holding a military-grade submachine gun with perfect tactical posture—elbows tucked, weight balanced, eyes locked on the target.
Bishop stood beside her, baring his bloody teeth, panting heavily, looking up at her as if awaiting her command, not Lucian’s.
“Well, well,” Lucian murmured, lowering his weapon slightly, though his eyes burned with a dangerous new curiosity. “That is a very impressive stance for someone who allegedly lives on tips.”
The surviving gunman groaned on the floor, clutching his bleeding head. Before Lucian could interrogate him, a high-pitched beeping sound echoed from the dead leader’s chest pocket.
“C4,” Mara whispered, her eyes widening. She didn't look at Lucian; she looked at the blinking red light beneath the dead man's tactical vest. “They didn’t come to kidnap you, Draven. They came to wipe this entire block off the map. We have thirty seconds.”
“The back stairs,” Lucian said, grabbing her uninjured wrist—not with violence, but with an urgent, commanding grip. “Now!”
They ran. Bishop sprinted alongside them, his powerful legs eating up the carpeted hallway. Behind them, the low, rhythmic beeping grew faster, louder, screaming of imminent death.
They burst through the heavy fire doors into the rainy, neon-lit alleyway just as the second floor of the Black Orchid exploded in a deafening roar of orange flame and flying glass. The shockwave threw them forward.
Lucian shielded Mara with his body, slamming onto the wet asphalt. Bishop stood over both of them, barking fiercely at the falling debris.
As the smoke cleared, Lucian raised his head. His face was streaked with soot and blood, but his eyes were entirely fixed on Mara, who was already on one knee, scanning the rooftops for snipers with the stolen gun still tight in her grip.
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“You’re not Mara Vale,” Lucian said, his voice dripping with dark realization. “Mara Vale died in an orphanage fire ten years ago. I know, because I bought the land it sat on.”
Hook: Mara lowered the gun, turning her cold gaze to meet his. “You’re right. But if you want to live through the night, Lucian, you’ll stop asking questions and get in the car. Because they didn’t come here for you tonight. They came for me.”
