Chapter 5 - The Siege of Elgin
"They found us," Roman said, his posture transforming instantly from a tender man into a cold, ruthless warlord.
He reached under the desk, pulling out a concealed steel case. Inside were three sleek, black semi-automatic handguns and several tactical magazines.
"Roman..." Ava gasped, terror gripping her chest.
"Get Sophie into the safe room behind the supply closet," Roman commanded, racking the slide of a pistol with a sharp, lethal clack. "Lock the iron door. Do not open it for anyone except me."
"I'm not leaving you!" Ava yelled over the sound of breaking glass echoing from the front bay windows.
"Ava!" Roman roared, turning to face her, grabbing her by both shoulders, his gray eyes blazing with desperate urgency. "If Julian takes this room, he takes my daughter! Protect her! Please!"
The word please from a man like Roman Black felt like a mountain collapsing.
Ava grabbed Sophie’s hand, sprinting toward the rear supply closet. She shoved the little girl inside the small, reinforced steel room, stepping in behind her.
"Ava, wait!" Roman shouted from the doorway.
Ava turned back.
Roman stepped forward, grabbed her by the back of her neck, and pulled her into a fierce, desperate, electric kiss. His lips were hot, demanding, and tasted of iron and dark promise.
"If I don't come back," Roman whispered against her lips, his breath heavy, "the red folder on the desk has a trust fund for both of you. Take her and run."
He slammed the heavy iron door shut. The deadbolt clicked into place from the outside.
Inside the dark, cramped safe room, Ava stood frozen, her fingers touching her swollen lips, her heart feeling as if it were about to burst out of her chest.
Outside, the world erupted into violence.
The muffled deafening sounds of automatic gunfire, breaking concrete, and shouting men echoed through the heavy steel walls of the safe room.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Roman!" Ava screamed, pressing her ear against the iron door.
Sophie sat in the corner of the safe room, holding her knees against her chest, quietly humming a lullaby her mother used to sing to her before she died.
Ava looked around the cramped room. On a metal shelf beside her sat a heavy fire extinguisher and a box of flare guns used for marine signaling.
He's recovering from surgery, Ava thought, her jaw tightening with raw rage. He can't fight five men alone.
She grabbed the flare gun, loaded a thick red cartridge into the barrel, and picked up the heavy fire extinguisher.
She unlocked the iron door from the inside.
"Ava, no!" Sophie cried.
"Stay here, sweetie," Ava said, her voice turning as cold as ice. "I'll be right back."
Ava slipped out of the safe room into the smoke-filled warehouse.
Roman was kneeling behind a concrete pillar, his gray sweater torn, blood seeping through his white bandages as he returned fire with his pistol against three armed men advancing down the central aisle.
Julian Vance—a tall, slick man in a tailored navy suit—stood near the front entrance, holding a silenced handgun, a cruel smirk on his face.
"Give it up, Roman!" Julian shouted over the gunfire. "You're bleeding out! The city is already mine!"
One of Julian’s men stepped around the side of Roman’s pillar, raising an assault rifle directly at the back of Roman’s head.
Roman didn't see him.
Ava didn't hesitate.
She stepped out from the darkness of the aisle, lifted the flare gun with both hands, and pulled the trigger.
A blinding, roaring ball of two-thousand-degree red phosphorus erupted from the barrel, striking the gunman directly in the chest. The man screamed, dropping his rifle as his tactical vest caught fire, stumbling backward into the fuel drums near the workbench.
Roman spun around, his eyes widening in utter shock as he saw Ava standing in the smoke, holding the smoking flare gun.
"Ava?!" Roman roared.
"Shoot him!" Julian screamed, pointing his gun at Ava.
Roman didn't think. He threw his body across the open aisle, tackling Ava behind a steel storage container just as a hail of bullets tore through the air where she had been standing three seconds before.
They hit the floor together, Roman taking the full force of the impact to protect her body with his own.
"Are you insane?!" Roman yelled into her ear, his breath ragged, his dark hair messy with sweat and dust. "I told you to stay in the room!"
"He was going to shoot you!" Ava shouted back, her hands gripping his collar tightly. "And I'm not done yelling at you yet!"
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Roman stared at her through the smoke and gunfire. Then, slowly, a low, dark, breathless laugh escaped his lips.
"God help me," Roman whispered, his gray eyes burning with a wild, intoxicating adoration. "I fell in love with a lunatic."
