Chapter 5 - THE HUNT IN THE SHADOWS"Touch her, and I'll put a bullet through your skull, Julian!"
Gabriel’s voice echoed like a thunderclap as he stepped in front of me, drawing his twin handguns and aiming them directly at Julian’s forehead.
The ten enforcers behind Julian instantly raised their assault rifles, locking their sights on Gabriel and me. The atmosphere in the master bedroom was toxic with imminent death. On the floor, Sebastian was still seizing, his breath rattling violently in his throat as red foam flecked his lips.
"Gabriel, stand down!" Julian roared, his face twisted in calculated rage. "She's an operative! We checked her background—she was drowning in debt! Moretti paid her off to poison Sebastian the moment he showed signs of walking! She used a slow-acting neurotoxin!"
"I didn't poison him!" I screamed, tears streaming down my face as I desperately maintained Sebastian's airway. "I prepared the base smoothie, but it was left on the prep counter in the kitchen for ten minutes before I brought it up! Someone tampered with it!"
"Save it for the grave, bitch!" Julian sneered. "Men, execute Gabriel for treason and take the woman!"
"Wait!" I yelled, my voice ringing with clinical authority. "He's not dead yet! It’s a organophosphate nerve agent! If you don't administer an Atropine and Pralidoxime injection within three minutes, his respiratory center will collapse and he will die of severe hypoxia! If you kill me now, he dies right here on this floor!"
Julian’s eyes flickered with a micro-expression of pure annoyance—he wanted Sebastian to die right now.
"She's lying!" Julian ordered. "Shoot them!"
"No!" Gabriel roared.
In a lightning-fast motion, Gabriel pulled an emergency medical strobe flare from his tactical vest, smashed it against the floor, blinding the enforcers in a blinding flash of white light and deafening thermite noise!
"Move!" Gabriel grabbed my arm, yanking me up.
Despite the blinding light, I grabbed the medical kit from the nightstand, loaded two pre-filled auto-injectors of Atropine, and slammed them directly into Sebastian’s outer thigh through his trousers!
"Clear!" Gabriel yelled, hauling Sebastian’s massive 210-pound muscular frame over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry with unbelievable strength.
Gunfire erupted behind us, tearing through the heavy oak doors and shattering the glass artwork as Gabriel, holding Sebastian, and I sprinted down the secret service corridors behind the master suite.
"Where is Oliver?!" I shrieked above the deafening noise of automatic gunfire echoing through the estate.
"I had my loyal men secure Oliver ten minutes ago when I noticed Julian’s guards changing positions!" Gabriel yelled as we ran down a steep spiral staircase into the underground escape tunnels. "He’s in the armored escape vehicle at the south exit!"
We burst through a heavy steel blast door into an underground garage. A massive, matte-black armored SUV was running, its engine humming loudly. The rear door flew open, and my son Oliver was sitting inside, crying hysterically while holding his teddy bear.
"Mommy!" Oliver screamed.
"Ollie!" I lunged into the backseat, pulling my son into a ferocious hug.
Gabriel shoved Sebastian’s heavy, unconscious body into the back seat beside us, slammed the door, jumped into the driver's seat, and floored the accelerator!
The heavy steel garage doors shattered into pieces as our five-ton armored vehicle smashed through them, tearing out onto the rain-slicked, dark highway overlooking Lake Michigan just as Julian's enforcers opened fire from the estate gates.
In the backseat, Sebastian stopped seizing. The Atropine had countered the lethal nerve agent, but his breathing was shallow, his pulse thready.
I fell to my knees on the floor of the speeding SUV, ripping open his shirt, placing my hands on his muscular chest, and beginning frantic CPR.
"Breathe, Sebastian! Breathe, damn it!" I cried, pressing down on his chest in rhythmic motions. "You promised me! You promised you would build his playground! You promised you would stand up! Don't you dare die in my arms!"
I leaned down, pinched his nose, and delivered two full breaths of air directly into his lungs.
On the third compression, Sebastian suddenly gasped for air!
His massive hand shot up, grabbing my collar with terrifying strength. His bloodshot dark eyes snapped open, locking onto mine with absolute, murderous intensity.
"Claire..." he choked out, blood coughing past his lips.
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"I'm here! I'm here, Sebastian!" I sobbed, holding his hand against my cheek.
"Julian..." Sebastian whispered, his eyes blazing with a dark, demonic vengeance that sent shudders through the entire vehicle. "Julian... did this. He... planted... the bomb... twenty years ago..."
