Chapter 6 - The Convoys of the Crimson King
The thunderous hiss of the hydraulic locks releasing echoed like a dying breath through the Grand Plaza ballroom.
Heavy reinforced oak doors swung wide, exposing the cold night air of Fifth Avenue.
Dozens of black tactical vehicles with flashing red emergency strobes barricaded the street outside.
Over forty armed operatives wearing the Cross family crest stormed the room in precise, disciplined formations.
They did not shout commands at the terrified billionaires cowering beneath overturned tables.
They simply formed two impenetrable human walls, establishing a sterile corridor from the ballroom center directly out to the waiting fleet.
At the center of that corridor knelt Dr. Samuel Evans, his hands soaked in Gabriel’s blood as he pressed surgical gauze against the boss’s shattered shoulder.
Gabriel’s eyelids flickered, his breathing shallow and rattling, yet his fingers remained hooked around the sleeve of my cotton dress like an anchor.
Even unconsciousness could not loosen the grip of a man who had spent five years drowning in regret.
“Claire,” Dr. Evans shouted over the sudden roar of tactical radios and idling engines.
“We need to lift him onto the gurney immediately or he will bleed out on this marble floor.”
“Take him,” I whispered, my voice hoarse from the suffocating smoke of gunpowder.
Leo and Mateo clung to my waist, their little bodies trembling against the chill rushing in from the opened doors.
Julian sat on the bench beside me, his small lips still tinged with that terrifying faint blue shade.
Two paramedics rushed forward with a portable oxygen mask, gently placing it over Julian’s face.
The little boy reached out with his free hand, weakly clutching Gabriel’s limp fingers before the medics could pull the gurney away.
“Is daddy going to sleep forever?” Julian’s muffled voice asked through the transparent plastic mask.
Every hardened soldier in Gabriel’s personal guard froze at that single word.
The word Daddy had never once been uttered in Gabriel Cross’s empire.
Gabriel’s eyes snapped open at the sound of the child’s voice, a sudden surge of adrenaline defying the laws of shock and trauma.
He coughed, spitting a smear of dark crimson onto the gurney sheet, his gray-green eyes locking onto Julian with ferocious clarity.
“No, little soldier,” Gabriel rasped, his voice tearing from his chest like scraped iron.
“Daddy is staying right here.”
He looked up at Dr. Evans, his gaze turning razor-sharp despite the gray pallor of his skin.
“Get Dr. Bennett to St. Jude’s Pavilion within fifteen minutes,” Gabriel commanded.
“If Bennett is asleep, drag him out of bed in his pajamas.”
“If his surgical team hesitates, tell them I will level their entire private hospital before sunrise.”
“Dr. Bennett has already been notified and is in transit under motorcade escort, Boss,” Dr. Evans answered quickly.
Gabriel’s gaze shifted to me, refusing to let the paramedics wheel him forward an inch until I met his eyes.
“You ride with me,” Gabriel ordered, his tone devoid of cruelty, filled only with desperate pleading.
“You and the boys.”
“I will not let you disappear into the night again, Claire.”
“I’m not running, Gabriel,” I said, looking down at our three frightened children.
“My son’s life depends on that surgeon, and right now, your empire holds the only key to his survival.”
“Then come,” he whispered.
The guards parted like the Red Sea as I walked alongside the two gurneys, holding Leo and Mateo with my hands while Julian lay strapped securely ahead of me.
As we passed through the grand foyer, Councilman Vance tried to push past a security guard to demand an explanation.
“Cross, you can’t leave two hundred foreign dignitaries trapped in your lockdown!” Vance roared.
Gabriel turned his head on the gurney, his bloody lips curling into a cold, merciless sneer.
“Confiscate their devices, have them sign the non-disclosure affidavits, and let them out one by one through the service tunnel,” Gabriel instructed his second-in-command.
“Anyone who leaks a single photograph of my sons to the press will find their offshore bank accounts liquidated by midnight.”
The councilman went pale and fell back into the shadows without another word.
Outside, the night air was freezing, thick with the smell of rain-soaked asphalt and burning gasoline.
A convoy of six heavily armored Cadillac Escalades surrounded an unmarked mobile intensive care ambulance.
The flashing lights cast eerie shadows over the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan, turning the city into a surreal gothic battleground.
Paramedics hoisted Gabriel and Julian into the back of the medical vehicle simultaneously.
I climbed inside with Leo and Mateo, sitting on the narrow bench between the two stretchers.
The heavy rear doors slammed shut, and the heavy pneumatic lock clicked with finality.
Sirens wailed as the entire armored armada accelerated down Fifth Avenue, clearing intersections with terrifying speed.
Inside the ambulance, the monitors beeped erratically, displaying the fragile rhythms of two hearts bound by the same blood.
Gabriel reached across the narrow space between the stretchers, his calloused, bloodstained hand searching blindly until it found Julian’s tiny arm.
He held his son’s wrist, feeling the unsteady pulse beneath the pale skin, his jaw clenching with every skipped beat.
“Five years,” Gabriel murmured, his eyes closed as the vehicle swayed around a sharp turn.
“Five years I spent building walls of steel and blood, thinking I was securing my legacy.”
“And my entire legacy was sleeping in a broken town in Maine, fighting for every breath.”
I turned my head toward the small window, watching the blur of city lights reflect off the rain-streaked glass.
“You didn’t look for us where it mattered, Gabriel,” I said softly.
“You looked for enemies in penthouses and boardrooms.”
“You forgot that the people who truly loved you never cared about your crown.”
Gabriel flinched, the emotional blow landing heavier than the bullet buried in his shoulder.
He turned his head toward me, the raw agony in his eyes unshielded for the first time in his life.
“Teach me, Claire,” he whispered, a tear tracing a path through the dried blood on his cheek.
“If we survive tonight, teach me how to be a man instead of a monster.”
The ambulance screeched to a halt outside the underground surgical entrance of St. Jude’s Pavilion before I could answer.
May you like
The heavy hydraulic doors opened to reveal a dozen surgical specialists waiting in sterile scrubs, their faces grim beneath the fluorescent lights.
The battle for Julian’s life had officially begun.
