Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
She scooted her chair out and followed me. “Bastien.”
I walked out of the restaurant and stepped onto the sidewalk as I texted my driver.
She yanked on my arm even though I was standing still. “Bastien, I don’t want you to do this. Please, just stay. He made his choice.”
“I’ll be fine, Fleur.”
“It’s not worth the risk.”
I saw my driver round the corner and pull up to the curb in front of us.
“He’ll take you home. I’ll call when it’s done.”
“No.” She dug her boots into the sidewalk like a stubborn horse. “I want you to stay.”
“Sweetheart.” I cupped her face. “If I stay, he’ll die a gruesome death. I’m not going to tell you the things they’ve done to others in the past because you’ll never sleep again. I understand you’ve chosen me over him, but I also understand you’ll never be the same if this is how he dies.”
Her eyes continued to water and she blinked to fight them back, but that just made them release like rivers down her cheeks. “I’ll die if you die, Bastien. I will…” The tears started to roll down like an avalanche, and she cried right on the sidewalk.
“I won’t die, sweetheart. They don’t know I’m coming. It’ll be quick.”
She breathed and panted, a mess in the cold but a beautiful one. “Promise me you’ll come back. Please.”
I didn’t make promises, not in this line of business, but I wanted to give her the reassurance she needed so she could go home and wait for me, so she wouldn’t waste more time. Every second was a second closer to death. “I promise.”
The SUV pulled over onto the side of the road, and Luca threw the door open so I could hop in quickly. The vehicle took off before I even fully shut the door, and then Luca opened the barrel of his shotgun and filled it with bullets.
“My contact says they have him at the church. Going to offer him as a sacrifice.”
Of course they were.
He rested the gun across his knees. “You sure about this?”
I stared at him.
“It’s not a good look for us. We don’t get involved in the affairs of our partners.”
“My girl almost died because of them. That can be our excuse.”
“Let’s hope it’s enough.”
The driver sped through the streets, our vehicles in a line like a motorcade to protect President Martin.
Luca handed me a vest, and I strapped it on.
I shoved a knife into my belt sheath then loaded my pistol before I cocked it. I’d take a shotgun as well. A rifle was too dangerous, especially when we were trying to avoid shooting Adrien. “Marcus admitted they knew about the plan, so they’re all culpable in their violation of the rules. They deserve the same fate as Oscar.”
“But you made peace with them.”
“Yeah.” I felt a little guilty about that, going back on my word. “Hopefully they didn’t tell anyone.”
“Yeah.”
The cars arrived outside the church, taking up the entire block. The pedestrians who happened to be on the sidewalk immediately booked it because they knew shit was about to go down. It’d become an unspoken rule that if you stayed out of the way, cop or civilian, you would be spared from gang warfare.
We hopped out of the vehicles and converged on the church. Didn’t bother trying to break down the door. The doors were fifty feet high, so the guys lined it with explosives and prepared to destroy a piece of French history.
We all stood back and then blew the doors. They broke from the hinges as soot marked the outside of the grand church and desecrated its history.
“They aren’t gonna like that,” Luca said.
“They’ll be dead in ten minutes, so whatever.”
Shotguns in hand and with a line of my guys around us, we moved through the smoke and stepped into the church. Adrien was the easiest to spot because he was staked to a cross like Jesus Christ. He was soaked in his own sweat and writhing in pain, pierced through his hands and wrists and clothed in a blood-soaked robe. Music from an organ continued to play like it was coming from a sound system that they hadn’t turned off.
The back wall was lined with their guards, men with rifles and shotguns who were as prepared to blow us to smithereens as we were to do that to them. They already had their guns aimed, but they wouldn’t fire until Marcus made the call.
Marcus was in the center in his golden robe, and he gave me a look packed with more rage than he could express with words.
Adrien looked like he was going to pass out. But his eyes widened in surprise at the sight of me. He didn’t speak, but he looked livelier when he realized there was a chance he would escape this.