Chapter 9 - Out of the Ashes
Adrian heard Sophie’s desperate warning loud and clear through his earpiece.
He immediately glanced at the monitor on Moretti’s desk and saw the blinking red numbers.
Twenty-five seconds remaining.
Dominic Moretti was laughing hysterically, blood dripping from his shattered hand onto the expensive rug.
“If I die tonight, the King of Chicago dies with me!” Dominic spat, his eyes wide with madness.
“Mason, pull all the men back to the emergency stairwell immediately!” Adrian roared.
His men scrambled backward out of the penthouse, abandoning their positions in a desperate bid for survival.
Adrian grabbed Dominic tightly by the collar of his expensive silk shirt.
He was not going to let this coward take the easy way out and escape justice.
He dragged the screaming mob boss down the hallway toward the reinforced emergency stairwell.
Fifteen seconds remaining.
“Leave him behind, Boss, he is slowing you down!” Mason yelled, holding the heavy fire door open.
“No,” Adrian grunted, straining against Moretti's dead weight.
“He is going to stand trial for what he did to my city.”
They cleared the stairwell doors and threw themselves down the concrete steps just as the timer hit zero.
A massive explosion ripped through the top floor of the casino, shattering every window in a shower of glass.
The tremendous shockwave threw Adrian and Mason violently down a flight of hard concrete stairs.
Flames roared furiously above them, instantly melting the steel doors they had just passed through.
Back at the safehouse, the video feed went completely dead, replaced by a wall of terrifying static.
“Adrian?” Sophie cried out, hot tears springing to her eyes.
“Adrian, please answer me, please say something!”
Only the horrible sound of static answered her.
For two agonizing, heartbreaking minutes, she stared at the screen, feeling her world collapse.
She had finally found a man who saw her true worth, only to lose him to the senseless violence of his world.
She buried her face in her hands, letting out a shattered, grief-stricken sob.
Then, the comms system crackled to life with the sound of violent coughing and falling debris.
“Sophie.”
His voice was hoarse, exhausted, and the most incredibly beautiful sound she had ever heard.
“I am still here,” he rasped, fighting for air.
“We made it out of the blast radius.”
“Moretti is unconscious but alive, and his cartel is permanently broken.”
Sophie fell to her knees on the floor, crying heavy tears of pure, unadulterated relief.
“Please come home to me,” she whispered into the microphone, her voice shaking.
May you like
“I am on my way,” Adrian promised fiercely.
The ruthless King of Chicago had survived the fire, and he was coming back to claim his queen.
