Chapter 2 - The Shot at Pump Four
The bullet did not strike Emma's torso. It caught her high in the right shoulder, the concussive force slamming her backward against the open driver’s door of her Honda.
She shrieked—a sharp, desperate sound cut short as her breath blew out of her lungs. She hit the pavement hard, her hands instinctively curling over her pregnant stomach as dark blood began soaking through the shoulder of her cream sweater.
“Pike!” Reeves screamed, taking two terrified steps back, his pistol wobbling wildly in his grip. “What the hell are you doing?! You shot her!”
Nolan Pike did not lower his silenced pistol. His face was cold, entirely devoid of panic or remorse. “She was reaching into the vehicle. She was concealing Mercer’s thumb drive.”
“She’s thirty-one weeks pregnant, you psychopath!” Reeves yelled, his knuckles white against his gun.
“She’s a liability,” Pike snapped, stepping over the pool of gas leaking from the pump. “Search the trunk. Find the drive. We burn the car with her inside.”
Across the concrete lot at pump six, Gabriel Moretti’s eyes locked into deadly focus.
There was no hesitation. No internal debate.
Gabriel reached beneath his charcoal wool coat, drew a suppressed Sig Sauer P226 from a shoulder holster, and leveled it over the hood of his SUV.
Pfft. Pfft.
Two muffled cracks echoed under the metal canopy.
The Blackridge guard standing near the rear SUV dropped instantly, hit twice through the center chest before he could even raise his rifle.
Pike spun around, his eyes widening in shock as his man hit the pavement. “Ambush! Down!”
Gabriel stepped out from behind his SUV with absolute, rhythmic precision. He fired twice more. The heavy rounds struck Pike’s secondary gunman in the thigh and throat, dropping him beside the gas pump in a spray of dark crimson.
“Vincent! Secure the woman!” Gabriel shouted, his voice a calm, commanding rumble.
Vincent moved like a blur. He drew his own weapon, sprinted across the open lot, and laid down suppressive fire, forcing Pike and Reeves behind the frame of the silver Honda.
Pike fired wildly over the trunk of the Honda, his bullets striking the metal canopy above Gabriel’s head, sending sparks flying through the cold air. “Who the hell are you?!” Pike bellowed.
Gabriel did not answer. He advanced with measured, unhurried steps, adjusting his angle.
Reeves panicked. Seeing two of his team dead on the asphalt within five seconds, the young guard dropped his weapon, threw his hands into the air, and sprinted blindly into the dark tree line behind the station.
Pike realized he was alone. He cast one furious glance at the bleeding woman on the pavement, then at Gabriel’s terrifyingly steady approach.
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Pike dove into the driver's seat of the front black SUV, slammed the vehicle into reverse, and tore out of the gas station lot, tires screaming against the asphalt as he disappeared down County Road 14.
Silence returned to the canopy, broken only by the rhythmic hum of the overhead fluorescent lights and the wet, ragged breathing of the woman on the ground.
