Chapter 36 - The Confession from Behind Bars
Daniel spun on his heel and fired three rapid rounds at Victor’s personal guards. The bullets sparked off their body armor, knocking the lead guard onto the grass, buying Daniel the three seconds he needed to sprint into the labyrinth of marble headstones.
Automatic fire tore through the ancient cemetery, shattering angel wings, pulverizing marble crosses, and kicking up geysers of wet dirt around Daniel's sprinting boots.
He didn't care about the bullets. He didn't care about his bleeding shoulder. All he saw was the small silhouette of his son being dragged out through the shattered window of the SUV by a masked operative.
"Daddy! Help me!" Mason’s terrified screams cut through the gunfire like a razor blade.
"Let him go!" Daniel roared.
He cleared the final row of tombstones, launched himself off a concrete crypt, and collided with the operative in mid-air. Both men slammed violently into the hood of the SUV. Daniel slammed his steel pistol frame into the operative’s throat, hearing the cartilage crunch, then threw the man off the vehicle into the mud.
The second operative leveled a shotgun at Daniel’s chest from five yards away.
*Click.*
Before the man could squeeze the trigger, a thunderous rifle shot echoed from the high bell tower of St. Jude's chapel.
The operative's head snapped back in a mist of red, his body collapsing instantly against the tires.
Daniel froze, dragging Mason behind his back. He looked up at the bell tower, expecting a second sniper to finish them off.
Instead, a silhouette in an oversized trench coat emerged onto the stone balcony of the chapel. A woman. Her hands held a long-range hunting rifle, the barrel smoking in the cold morning breeze.
She racked the bolt, lowered the rifle, and pulled down her woolen scarf.
Daniel's heart stopped. His knees nearly buckled beneath him.
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Standing seventy feet above them, her dark hair whipped by the autumn wind, her face pale but fiercely alive, was Emily.
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