Chapter 12 - Siege of the Mountain Manor and His Ultimate Sacrifice
The violence on the monitor was swift, brutal, and absolute.
Roman didn't fight like an aristocrat; he fought like a man protecting his life’s only purpose. Despite the gunshot wound in his side, he overpowered Bennett, disarming him and driving the steel home.
Bennett went limp on the marble floor.
Silence fell over the shattered estate. The smoke drifted lazily through the ruined foyer, illuminated only by the flickering red emergency lights.
Roman staggered to his feet, clutching his bleeding side. He looked up at the security camera mounted above the panic room corridor and tapped his chest twice—our silent signal.
Then, his knees buckled, and he collapsed facedown onto the blood-soaked marble.
“Roman!” I screamed.
Sofia hit the release override. The titanium bolts retracted with a hiss, and the heavy door swung open.
I sprinted down the smoke-filled hallway, ignoring Sofia’s warnings to stay back. The smell of cordite and burning drywall choked my throat, but nothing mattered except reaching the man lying motionless at the bottom of the grand staircase.
I threw myself onto the floor beside him, rolling him onto his back.
His skin was pale and slick with cold sweat. Blood soaked through his shirt, dark and thick.
“Roman! Look at me! Open your eyes!” I sobbed, pressing both of my hands over the wound on his side to stem the bleeding. “Don't you dare die on me! Roman!”
His eyelids fluttered open weakly. When his gaze found mine, a faint, ragged breath left his chest.
“Evelyn...” he whispered, his bloody hand reaching up to touch my cheek. “You’re... you’re safe.”
“You idiot, why did you do that?” Tears poured down my face, dripping onto his chest. “I love you! Do you hear me? I love you! You have to stay! Our daughter needs her father!”
Roman’s eyes widened slightly, a breathtaking light flaring within their dark depths. “You... you love me?”
“Always. It was always you,” I wept, leaning down to kiss his cold, bruised lips. “Now fight! Fight for us!”
A sudden, sharp contraction ripped through my lower abdomen, so intense it doubled me over against Roman’s chest.
May you like
My water broke across the marble floor.
Sofia slid onto the floor beside us, pressing an emergency trauma dressing onto Roman’s wound while shouting into her radio: “Medevac One, we need immediate airlift! We have a critical gunshot trauma and a woman in active labor! Get the bird on the helipad right now!”
