Chapter 6 - The Fifth Avenue Ambush
The quiet luxury of Fifth Avenue shattered in a rain of glass and gunfire.
Richard drew his weapon, but Adrian was faster.
BANG! BANG!
Adrian fired twice through the center display, hitting the lead guard in the shoulder and forcing Richard to dive behind a heavy marble display column. Glass shelves shattered, sending thousands of dollars of crystal perfume bottles crashing to the floor in a blinding spray of fragrance and sharp shards.
"Go! Out the back!" Adrian roared, grabbing Evangeline's wrist and pulling her toward the rear hallway.
Marco fired a suppressing volley from behind the reception desk, keeping Richard's remaining two men pinned behind the entrance doors. "I'll cover the rear! Get her to the armored car in the alley!"
Adrian pulled Evangeline through the velvet curtains into the service corridor. Pain flared like liquid fire across his left ribcage where his surgical bandage was tearing open under the strain, but he gritted his teeth and kept moving.
They burst out through the heavy steel rear door into the narrow alley behind Fifth Avenue.
A blacked-out armored SUV was idling near the snow-covered dumpsters, its exhaust rising in white plumes against the freezing air. Adrian's secondary driver, a quiet veteran named Thomas, slammed the rear door open from the inside.
"Get in!" Adrian barked, shoving Evangeline into the leather interior.
Before Adrian could climb in behind her, a hand grabbed his collar from behind and yanked him violently backward onto the icy asphalt.
It was Richard. The scarred enforcer had cut through the salon's side kitchen exit to flank them.
Adrian hit the ice hard, his gun flying from his grip and sliding beneath the SUV. Pain exploded behind his eyes as his bleeding side struck the curb.
Richard stepped over him, drawing a heavy tactical knife from his belt. "Victor wants her dead, Kane. But he told me I could leave your body in the trash where you belong."
Richard lunged down, aiming the blade straight for Adrian's throat.
CRACK!
A heavy, cast-iron alley drain cover crashed violently into the side of Richard's head.
Richard let out a strangled groan and collapsed sideways onto the snow, blood pouring from his temple.
Standing over him, holding the heavy iron sewer grate with two hands, her face flushed red in the freezing air, was Evangeline. She stood over the fallen enforcer, her chest heaving, her blue eyes blazing with a terrifying, unyielding fury.
She hadn't run. She had stepped out of the safe armored car, lifted a fifty-pound piece of iron, and saved his life for the second time in twenty-four hours.
Adrian stared at her from the ice, stunned.
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Evangeline dropped the heavy iron grate into the snow with a dull thud, reached down, grabbed Adrian by his lapels, and pulled him up with astonishing strength.
"I told you," she panted, her raspy voice cutting through the falling snow. "No cages. And nobody dies for me today."
