Chapter 3 - Blood on the Marble
The sound of shattering glass tore through the estate three minutes later.
Alarms wailed—shrill, mechanical screams that echoed off the vaulted ceilings of the mansion. The power cut instantly, plunging the conservatory into deep, gray shadows broken only by the sporadic flashes of tactical lights outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.
"Stay down!" Ethan barked, grabbing my arm and pulling me to the floor behind a reinforced marble planter just as a deafening burst of automatic gunfire pulverized the conservatory glass.
Shards rained down like frozen rain, slicing through the leaves of the ferns and skittering across the floor. I covered my head, heart hammering against my ribs so violently I thought it would burst. I had grown up around the Chicago mob, knew the threat of violence intimately, but I had never been in the center of an assassination hit.
"Russo's hit squad," Ethan muttered, drawing his Kimber while pulling a second magazine from his pocket with effortless precision. He looked down at me, his gray eyes piercing the gloom. "Clara, look at me."
I looked up, shaking, my hands coated in dirt and powdered glass.
"I need you to crawl toward the service stairs behind that panel," he instructed, his voice an eerie island of calm amid the cacophony of gunfire and shouting men. "The panic room is in the basement beneath the wine cellar. Brian is on his way. Go."
"What about you?" The words slipped out of me before I could filter them. Despite everything—the coldness, the cruelty of what I had overheard, the three months of silence—the thought of leaving him alone in the crossfire filled me with sheer terror.
Ethan looked stunned for a fraction of a heartbeat. Then, the corner of his mouth curved into a faint, bitter smile. "I'm the one they came for, sweetheart. Run."
He stood, firing three disciplined, rhythmic shots into the darkness. A man screamed outside; a body dropped through the broken window frame onto the terrace.
I moved, scrambling on hands and knees through the debris toward the concealed wooden panel near the back wall. Gunfire erupted from the hallway. Footsteps—heavy, tactical boots—approached rapidly.
"He's in the east wing!" a voice shouted in a thick Eastern European accent. "Take the girl alive if you can; kill the boss!"
Two men in black tactical gear burst through the conservatory’s double doors. I scrambled backward, my back hitting the solid mahogany wall. One of the gunmen saw me, raising his submachine gun.
"Drop it!" Ethan roared.
Ethan didn't seek cover. He stepped directly into the line of fire, his gun barking twice. The first shooter collapsed instantly. The second shooter spun, spraying a wild volley of bullets toward me.
Ethan threw himself across the space between us.
His weight crashed over me, slamming me to the floor, his massive frame shielding every inch of my body from the spray of lead. A horrific, wet impact sounded above me, accompanied by a sharp, guttural groan from Ethan’s throat.
The wooden wall behind us splintered into a thousand teeth.
With a roar born of pure adrenaline and rage, Ethan twisted, raised his weapon from over my shoulder, and put two rounds squarely through the second assailant’s chest. The man dropped like a stone, unmoving.
Then, silence fell over the room, save for the distant sound of Brian’s men engaging the remnants of the hit squad outside.
"Ethan?" I whispered, my voice trembling in the dark.
He was still leaning heavily over me, his forehead pressed against the crook of my neck. His breath was ragged, hot, and hitched with pain.
"Are you... unhurt?" he rasped, his voice strained.
"I'm fine. Ethan, let me up."
I pushed gently against his chest, and when my hand came away, it was soaked in something thick, hot, and copper-smelling.
Blood.
"Ethan!" I gasped, terror turning my blood to ice water.
"I'm fine," he lied, his body swaying as he tried to push himself up. He slumped against the base of the wall, clutching his left side. Blood was already blooming through his white shirt, spreading across his ribs in a horrifying crimson stain.
"You're hit," I cried, scrambling to my knees beside him. I ripped the hem of my silk dress, tearing a long strip of fabric with trembling hands. "Don't move. Press this against it."
"Clara... go to the safe room," he ordered, his face already turning dangerously pale, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. "There might be more..."
"Shut up, Ethan!" I snapped, the adrenaline overriding my fear. "You took a bullet for me. You don't get to command me right now."
I pressed the silk bundle firmly against his wound. Ethan hissed through his teeth, his hand instinctively snapping out to grip my wrist—not in anger, but in agony. His gray eyes met mine in the dim moonlight filtering through the shattered roof.
"Why do you care?" he whispered, his vision swimming. "I'm just the monster who bought you."
"Because you're an idiot," I choked out, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes, mingling with the dust on my cheeks. "Hold the cloth. I'm getting Brian."
Footsteps rushed down the hall, and Brian appeared in the doorway, weapon raised, flanked by two armed guards. He took one look at Ethan bleeding against the wall and swore under his breath.
"Get the doctor," I commanded Brian, my voice ringing with an authority I didn't know I possessed. "Now!"
May you like
Brian nodded, eyes wide with respect, and barked orders into his radio. As they lifted Ethan onto a stretcher, his fingers weakly caught the edge of my sleeve, refusing to let go until the darkness finally pulled him under.
***
