Chapter 12: The Sacrificial Shield
Before Victor could even raise his hand to violently signal the four heavily armed guards lurking in the shadows, the metal doors of the unfinished elevator shaft violently blew open.
Cole aggressively burst from the pitch-black shaft on the opposite side of the penthouse floor.
He was entirely covered in blood, sweat, and concrete dust. Without missing a single fraction of a second, Cole aggressively raised his weapon and dropped the closest mercenary with a perfect, lethal shot to the chest.
But as Cole pivoted to acquire his second target, a violent, deafening CRACK echoed across the roof.
A high-caliber bullet violently tore directly through Cole’s right shoulder.
The massive, kinetic impact aggressively spun Cole around. He violently collapsed hard behind a heavy wooden pallet of construction bricks, instantly pinned down by a massive, unrelenting hail of suppressing machine-gun fire from Stefano’s remaining guards.
“Cole!” Haley screamed in pure terror, instinctively stepping forward.
“Enough!” Stefano Rossi violently roared, aggressively grabbing a heavy submachine gun from the table. “Kill the pathetic spare! Bring me the girl alive so I can skin her!”
Victor Vance, however, moved with shocking, terrifying speed for an old man.
He violently drew a compact, silver pistol from his tailored suit jacket and aggressively aimed it directly at Cole’s exposed, bleeding head behind the wooden pallets.
“Drop the gun right now, Haley,” Victor commanded. His voice wasn’t warm anymore. It was entirely dripping with condescending, sociopathic pity. “Drop it, or I swear to God your little attack dog dies right this second.”
Haley completely froze. The freezing wind violently whipped her dark, tangled hair entirely across her bruised, battered face.
She looked desperately over at Cole. He was bleeding heavily from his shoulder, violently gasping for air, and entirely cornered by the overwhelming firepower. He looked up at her, his dark eyes silently begging her not to surrender.
“Put the gun down, Haley,” Victor aggressively mocked, taking a slow, confident step toward her. “You are holding that weapon like it’s a frying pan. You are entirely out of your depth.”
Stefano laughed, a violently unhinged, psychotic sound that echoed over the dark city.
“Go back to being a pathetic, invisible waitress, honey,” Victor sneered, his silver gun still aimed dead at Cole. “This violent world isn’t meant for soft little girls like you.”
