Chapter 894
“Boss, something’s wrong,” Marcus muttered, scanning the unfinished skeleton of the main tower. “The high ground…”
A flash of light. A lens flare against steel.
“Sniper!” Marcus screamed.
He threw himself in front of Lucian just as the crack of a high-powered rifle split the air.
𝖱o𝗆𝖺𝗇с𝖾 𝗇𝘰v𝘦l𝘴 o𝗇 𝗴аln𝘰𝘃e𝗅𝗌.𝘤𝗈𝗆
Marcus jerked violently, his shoulder erupting in a spray of red.
“Marcus!” Lucian grabbed him, dragging him behind the heavy treads of the bulldozer. Bullets pinged off the metal, sparking like angry fireflies.
“We’re pinned!” Lucian yelled into his comms. “Oracle, we have snipers — two shooters, north and east towers!”
“Lucian, get out of there!” Skye’s voice screamed in his ear.
“I can’t move!” Lucian fired his handgun blind over the treads, trying to suppress the advancing mob. “They’re closing in!”
It was a kill box. The rioters were the bait. The snipers were the executioners.
Lucian checked his magazine. Three rounds. Marcus was groaning, losing blood fast.
“I’m going to draw their fire,” Lucian told Marcus. “You crawl to the ditch.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Marcus wheezed.
Lucian didn’t listen. He took a deep breath. The rain plastered his hair to his forehead. He thought of Celeste — her betrayal, her madness. He thought of Skye.
He stood up.
He fired two shots at the north tower, trying to spoil the sniper’s aim.
Crack.
The sound was different this time. Wetter.
Lucian felt a sledgehammer strike his chest. The force lifted him off his feet and threw him back into the mud.
The world went quiet. The rain felt cold on his face. He looked down. His white shirt was turning red — a dark, blossoming flower spreading directly over his heart.
So this is it, he thought, with a strange and distant calm. Not a bad run.
“Lucian!” Marcus was screaming, but it sounded as though he were underwater.
Then sirens — real ones this time. The rioters scattered like cockroaches exposed to light.
Skye’s voice was the last thing he heard before the darkness took him.
Skye arrived at the hospital just as the ambulance doors flew open.
She saw him. Lucian Graves — always composed, always in control — looked like a broken doll. His skin was the color of ash. An oxygen mask covered his face.
“Lucian!” She rushed forward, ignoring the paramedics trying to hold her back, and grabbed his hand. It was ice cold.
His eyes fluttered open. Unfocused. Glassy.
“Skye,” he whispered, his voice a wet, bubbling rasp. “Trap…”
“Don’t talk,” Skye sobbed, running alongside the gurney. “You’re going to be fine.”
“Beware…” His grip tightened momentarily, then went completely slack. “The… Judas…”
The trauma unit doors swallowed him. Skye was left standing in the hallway, his blood sticky on her palms.
“He’s critical,” Alistair said, appearing at her side. He placed a hand on her back. “Lung, maybe heart. It’s bad, Skye.”
Skye stared at her hands. “Who did this?”
“The K Syndicate,” Alistair said grimly. “They’re making their move.”
The TV mounted on the waiting room wall flashed with a breaking news banner.
BREAKING NEWS: KENSINGTON GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT.