Chapter 5 - A Bullet in the Rain
The rain began to fall in heavy, blinding sheets as Thomas steered the Maybach down Lake Shore Drive.
The city lights smeared across the rain-slicked glass like streaks of neon paint. The interior of the car was quiet, save for the rhythmic swish of the heavy-duty windshield wipers.
Adrian sat beside me, having discarded his tuxedo bowtie and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his crisp white dress shirt. The rigid, terrifying mob boss from the ballroom seemed to recede slightly into the shadows of the car, replaced by an exhausted man burdened by an empire of blood and concrete.
"You shouldn't have made that scene tonight," I said softly, looking out at the black waves crashing against the concrete barriers of the lake. "Vance looked like a man who had nothing left to lose."
"A man who has nothing left to lose is dangerous, Sophie," Adrian replied, his voice low and raspy. "A man who thinks he can insult what belongs to me is suicidal."
My breath hitched at the phrase *what belongs to me*. I turned my head to look at him, my heart thumping wildly. "I don't belong to you, Adrian. I work for you."
Adrian turned his head slowly, his eyes glowing in the amber wash of the passing streetlamps. "Don't you?"
Before I could answer, the night exploded into violence.
A deafening *CRACK* tore through the quiet. The Maybach violently swerved to the left, the tires screeching against the wet asphalt as the front passenger window shattered into a spiderweb of reinforced safety glass.
"Sniper! Highway overpass!" Thomas shouted, fighting the steering wheel.
A second later, a massive, reinforced black SUV barreled out of the blind spot from an entrance ramp, ramming directly into the side of our Maybach with a horrific crunch of metal.
My head slammed toward the glass, but before impact, a massive arm wrapped around my waist, yanking me violently across the seat and down into the footwell. Adrian covered my entire body with his own, using his broad shoulders as a human shield just as a hail of automatic gunfire shredded through the rear windshield.
Glass rained down upon us like hail. The deafening *chatter-chatter-chatter* of machine gun fire roared over the screams of the engine.
"Hold on to me!" Adrian roared against my ear.
I buried my face into his chest, clutching the lapels of his suit as the Maybach spun out of control, crashing into a concrete light pole with a bone-jarring impact that threw my stomach into my throat. The engine died in a hiss of steam and smoking rubber.
Silence descended, broken only by the pounding rain and the ticking of cooling metal.
"Thomas!" Adrian called out, his voice sharp.
"I'm alright, sir!" Thomas groaned from the front, blood trickling from a cut on his forehead, but already drawing a heavy-caliber pistol from under the dash. "Two vehicles. Vance’s hit squad. They've boxed us in against the seawall."
"Adrian..." I gasped, struggling to breathe beneath his weight.
That was when I felt it.
Something hot, thick, and sticky was soaking through the front of my black silk dress.
I looked down. Adrian was pushing himself off me, his teeth gritted in a savage snarl of pain. The right side of his crisp white shirt was drenched in crimson. A deep, jagged bullet graze had torn through his ribs, bleeding profusely.
"You're shot!" I cried, panic clawing at my throat.
"It's a graze," Adrian grunted, though his face had paled significantly. He reached under his arm and pulled a matte-black customized Glock from his holster, racking the slide with a clean, metallic *clack*. "Stay down, Sophie. No matter what happens, you do not leave this footwell."
"No, you're losing too much blood!" I shouted over the sound of car doors slamming outside in the rain.
Footsteps were splashing through the puddles, closing in on the wreck. Men shouting in Russian and English. Vance’s kill team had come to finish the job.
"Thomas, suppressive fire on the left flank on three," Adrian whispered, his breathing shallow. "One... two..."
"Wait!" I hissed, grabbing Adrian's wrist.
Through the cracked passenger door, I saw a severed high-voltage cable from the crushed light pole sparking furiously into a massive puddle of standing water right where the hitmen were advancing.
"Adrian! Shoot the utility box on the pole!" I yelled, pointing through the shattered glass. "The water! It's flooding the street!"
Adrian’s eyes flicked to where I was pointing. In less than a second, he understood.
He didn't hesitate. Adrian kicked open the buckled car door, leaned out into the torrential rain, and fired three rapid, pinpoint shots into the junction box on the downed pole.
Sparks erupted in a blinding shower of blue fire. The high-voltage wire whipped violently into the deep puddle just as four heavily armed men rounded the back of our car.
A horrific crackle of electricity surged through the water. Screams of agony tore through the rain as thousands of volts surged through the wet boots of the attackers, dropping them instantly to the asphalt like cut marionettes.
The remaining two shooters panicked, retreating toward their SUV, but headlights suddenly blinded the entire street.
Three black Voss Suburbans roared onto the scene, tires throwing water ten feet into the air. Marcus and six heavily armed security operatives poured out of the trucks, cutting down the remaining gunmen before they could even raise their weapons.
The fight was over in less than forty seconds.
Marcus sprinted to our car, ripping the buckled door open. "Boss! Boss, are you hit?!"
Adrian was leaning against the ruined leather seat, his hand clamped hard over his bleeding side, his breath coming in ragged gasps. But he didn't look at Marcus.
He looked down at me, still lying in the footwell, covered in his blood and shattered glass.
A slow, breathless laugh escaped his lips despite the agony in his side.
"You just electrocuted a hit squad with a streetlight, Sophie Carter," Adrian whispered, his dark eyes burning with an admiration so raw it made my knees weak.
"I told you," I gasped, tears finally spilling over my cheeks from the sheer adrenaline. "I'm not just a waitress."
Adrian reached down with a bloody, trembling hand, his thumb gently wiping a tear from my cheek.
"No," he said softly, before his eyelids flickered. "You're a miracle."
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Then, Chicago’s most feared man collapsed into my arms.
***
