Chapter 19 - The Price of War
"Adrian!" I screamed, lunging across the leather seat as the SUV sped north toward the Hudson Valley.
His face was pale, glistening with cold sweat under the passing highway streetlights.
A bullet had torn through his left side, just below the ribs.
He pressed his hand against the wound, gritting his teeth so hard that blood seeped from his lip.
"It's... it's a through-and-through, Claire," he gasped, his voice straining against excruciating pain.
"Missed the artery. I'm fine."
"You are not fine!" I sobbed, tearing the hem of my red velvet dress with frantic hands to create a makeshift tourniquet.
Sophia was crying loudly in her car seat, distressed by the smell of iron and the panic in my voice.
I pressed the balled-up velvet against Adrian’s side, leaning my entire weight against the wound to staunch the bleeding.
He hissed in agony, his hand reaching up to grasp the back of my neck, pulling my forehead against his.
"Listen to me, Claire," he whispered, his emerald eyes burning with an intense, haunting desperation.
"The Russians... they didn't track us to the Plaza on their own."
"My mother didn't hire them either."
"She's ruthless, but she wouldn't risk her own life in an open-fire hit."
"Then who?" I demanded, feeling the sticky warmth of his blood coating my hands.
"Someone inside my old inner circle," Adrian breathed, his consciousness beginning to drift.
"Before I left for Havenbrook... I made a blood pact with Dimitri Markov's brother."
"I promised him forty percent of our offshore transport routes if he kept the Bratva away from Havenbrook."
"I gave them a false ledger to protect you."
My heart cracked in half.
Even when he had begged for forgiveness in the Atlantic waves, even when we said our vows in front of the minister, he was still carrying hidden debts.
He was still trying to be the dark savior who shouldered every demon in secret.
"Why didn't you tell me, Adrian?" I wept, my tears mixing with the blood on his chest.
"Marriage means you don't fight alone!"
"You promised me no more shadows!"
"I wanted... I wanted you to be free," he murmured, his eyelids fluttering as shock began to claim his body.
"If you knew the dirt I was still standing in... you would have looked at me with disgust."
"You fool," I choked out, pressing harder on his wound, willing his heart to keep beating through sheer stubborn fury.
"I don't care about your dirt, Adrian!"
"I love you!"
"And you don't get to die on me after finally giving me my life back!"
The driver shouted from the front seat: "Mr. Vance! We're twenty minutes out from the Westchester compound! The gates are down, but there are multiple vehicles waiting outside!"
I wiped the tears from my eyes, leaving bloody streaks across my cheeks.
I looked at my unconscious husband, bleeding out in my lap.
I looked at our daughter, screaming for her parents in the backseat.
The fragile girl who hid in the closet of a Manhattan penthouse was dead.
The shadow bride was gone.
May you like
I reached down, pulled Adrian’s spare tactical pistol from his shoulder holster, racked the slide with a crisp, lethal snap, and looked at the driver in the rearview mirror.
"Ram the gates," I commanded.
