I came home after two years in Singapore and found my four-year-old son crawling on bruised knees while my husband’s mistress laughed and called him a little animal. / Chapter 74 / 80

Chapter 74 - Into the Lion's Maw

"Julian! Move him!" I screamed into the radio headset, sprinting back toward the access ladder with every ounce of strength left in my legs.

Before the static cleared, a thunderous detonation ripped through the ceiling above me. Shrapnel rained down like razor-sharp hail. The blast wave threw me against the bulkhead, knocking the wind from my lungs and leaving a ringing roar in my ears.

Through the dust and swirling smoke, I saw the reinforced blast door hanging on broken hinges.

"Mommy!" Leo’s terrified shriek pierced through the ringing in my ears like an electric shock.

That single word revitalized every cell in my bruised body. I pushed myself up from the debris, blood trickling into my eyes from a gash on my forehead. I raised my rifle and stormed through the shattered doorway.

Julian was on the floor, knocked unconscious by the concussion blast, a deep cut bleeding across his temple. In the center of the room stood a towering mercenary officer, his helmet visor raised, revealing cold, reptilian gray eyes. In his left hand, he held Leo by the collar of his jacket, dangling the boy off the deck like a sack of garbage. In his right hand, he held a heavy sidearm pressed against Julian’s chest.

"Put the gun down, mother," the mercenary growled, a sneer twisting his scarred lips. "Ten billion dollars doesn't care if the kid has broken bones, as long as his brainstem is intact for the vault scan. One more step and I paint the wall with his little head."

Leo’s tiny hands were clawing at the man’s massive wrist. Tears poured down his dirty, bruised cheeks, but when he saw me, his eyes widened with pure trust. "Mommy... you said you had bullets..."

"I do, baby," I whispered.

The mercenary laughed, a grating, ugly sound. "You're out of options, bitch. Toss the rifle, or—"

He never finished the sentence. I didn't toss the rifle; I fired straight through the fleshy part of my own left forearm.

The high-caliber round pierced my arm and punched clean through the mercenary’s throat behind me, severing his windpipe in a fountain of crimson. The shock of the hit forced his hand open. Leo dropped to the deck, and before the dying contractor could pull his trigger, I leaped forward and drove my combat blade into the base of his skull.

The giant collapsed like a felled redwood.

I scooped Leo into my right arm, ignoring the white-hot agony pulsing through my bleeding left forearm. I pressed his head against my chest, covering his eyes so he wouldn't see the carnage.