Chapter 5 - The Sniper’s Shadow
“Kendrick, down!” I screamed.
Training I didn't know I possessed took over. I threw my entire weight against him, knocking him toward the cover of a massive marble pillar just as a high-caliber round shattered the stone above our heads, raining white dust over our hair.
*Crack!*
Titan surged forward, roaring like a wounded lion, his massive body shielding Penny’s father.
Kendrick pulled his weapon in a fluid, lethal motion, shoving me behind his broad back. “Lucian! Southeast roof! Take them!”
Gunfire erupted across the courtyard. Ashford’s snipers answered from the surrounding rooftops, a deafening exchange of suppressed fire. Within seconds, a thud echoed from the balcony above as the enemy sniper plummeted to the concrete patio, dead.
Kendrick didn't look at the corpse. He grabbed my shoulders, his hands trembling with an adrenaline he rarely showed.
“Are you hit?” he demanded, his voice rough, scanning my gown for crimson stains. “Maya! Look at me. Did they hit you?”
“I’m fine,” I gasped, clutching his lapels. “I saw the laser. I just... I reacted.”
He stared down at me, his chest heaving against mine. His silver eyes were wild, stripping away the cold, unfeeling mafia boss and revealing the raw, fiercely protective man underneath.
“You jumped in front of a bullet for me,” he breathed, his hand coming up to cup the side of my face, his thumb trembling against my cheek. “Why?”
“Penny needs you,” I whispered, our faces mere inches apart. “And... so do I.”
Before the sentence fully left my lips, Kendrick pulled me against his chest and crushed his mouth to mine.
The kiss was fierce, desperate, and filled with the dark hunger of two people standing on the edge of an abyss. The chaos, the shouting guards, the rain starting to fall on the glass dome above—everything vanished. For that one suspended moment, there was only the taste of rain, scotch, and his fierce, unyielding possession.
He pulled back, his eyes dark with unspoken promises. “Nobody touches what is mine.”
We were rushed back to the estate under heavy armor. But the moment we stepped into the private study, Lucian was waiting with an expression of sheer dread.
“Boss,” Lucian said quietly. “We identified the dead sniper.”
“Barrett’s man?” Kendrick asked, stripping off his blood-flecked cuffs.
“No,” Lucian replied, glancing nervously at me. “He was an operative from the old Blackwood Syndicate. The same crew that bombed Clara’s motorcade three years ago.”
My breath caught in my throat.
Lucian turned a tablet toward Kendrick. “And there’s more. We found encrypted comms on the shooter’s phone. He wasn't aiming for you, Boss. He was aiming for Miss Vance.”
Kendrick froze. He turned his head slowly toward me, the warmth of our kiss instantly replaced by a razor-sharp, terrifying calculation.
“Why would the men who murdered my wife want my nanny dead, Maya?” Kendrick asked, his voice deathly calm.
May you like
The walls were closing in. My secret was no longer safe.
***
