CHAPTER 254: THROUGH FIRE AND RIVER

The world became a violent, sickening tumble of metal, glass, and screaming engine noise. I felt my torso slam against the seatbelt, the burn on my back sending electric pulses of agony through me. The vehicle rolled twice, three times, crushing metal like a tin can, before crashing through a final thicket of pines and plunging into the blackness below.

The landing was brutal, a bone-jarring halt in frigid water.

The river rushed in through shattered glass, swallowing us whole.

Cold swallowed me. Black water pouring in.

I clawed free of the seatbelt, choking as icy current shoved against me. Cameron was slumped, barely conscious, blood mixing with the river. I hauled him up, fighting to force the door open. My burns screamed. My head throbbed with blinding pressure.

Then the gunfire continued. Bullets ripping the water surface around us. They weren’t letting us drown—they wanted us finished.

The surface of the river fractured with each bullet’s impact, spiderweb cracks in the dark mirror. The SUV listed sideways, sinking faster, the dashboard sparking as short-circuiting electronics hissed in surrender.

A bullet thwacked into the headrest beside my ear, stuffing blooming like a grotesque flower. They were shooting to kill, but they were also shooting to pin us down, to keep us in the sinking box of metal until the river did their work for them.

The door. It was our only chance I braced a foot against the dashboard, shoving with everything I had as Cameron groaned, his good leg kicking at the rear windshield. Gray, now conscious with Reyes started doing the same thing to the other door’s window.

When we are all out of the metallic box, suddenly I felt a sharp pain. A white-hot, searing burst ripped through my gut. A bullet tore into my stomach, ripping the breath from my chest, heat and cold colliding as blood spilled into the river. Shit. I have been shot.

My vision swam, the icy water doing little to quell the inferno inside me. Reyes, bless his meticulous, ghost-like soul, was already dragging Cameron towards the bank, his movements swift and silent despite the chaos. Gray was right behind him, a dark, hulking shape against the churning water. I tried to follow, to push off the sinking vehicle, but my legs wouldn’t obey.

My legs felt like lead, my movements clumsy and sluggish. The current, which had been a minor inconvenience moments ago, now felt like a crushing weight, working against every agonizing kick. The cold seeped into my bones, a counterpoint to the scorching fire in my abdomen, threatening to drag me under.

Not now.

Not like this.

Not with her waiting.

Isabella. Her name tore through me sharper than the pain. Her face—the fire in her eyes when she argued, the softness when she thought I wasn’t looking—flashed against the darkness. The thought of her waiting, of me not coming back, carved deeper than the bullet.

I couldn’t leave her.

Couldn’t let this river be the end.

I forced my arms to move, every stroke a scream of agony. The burn in my back seared, the wound in my gut sent waves of weakness crashing through me, but I clawed toward the surface anyway. My vision fractured, the water turning red around me, but I held to one thing, one anchor.

Her.

If this was hell, I would crawl through it with my last breath. Because she was waiting. And I wasn’t done.

For a breathless, endless moment, there was nothing but black water and pressure, the roar of blood in my skull. My body screamed for air, for light, for release.

I broke the surface with a ragged gasp, air tearing into my lungs like fire. The river around me was chaos—shouts, gunfire, the hiss of bullets knifing through water. My limbs felt like stone, every movement slower, weaker. The pain in my gut was a hot coal spreading outward, pulling me under.

"Boss!" Gray’s voice cut through the storm. A splash beside me, then rough hands under my arm, hauling me up. Another man on my other side. Together they dragged me up toward the bank, every stroke an eternity.

My vision tunneled—the trees blurring, the night collapsing inward. Isabella’s face was the only thing sharp. Her laugh. Her fury. Her warmth. I clung to it, to her, as my body screamed to let go.

Backups. Finally.

Too late—and just in time.

Figures moved in the beam, enemies lit up like insects under glass. Our reinforcements rained fire from above, the night alive with tracer rounds and the deafening percussion of rotor blades as they fire shots at them

My knees buckled, and Gray tightened his grip, shouting orders I barely heard. Then—

Crack.

A sniper’s shot split the air. Something punched through my shoulder, savage and final. My body jerked, my knees gave way completely. Shot again?

And I... fell.

The world tilted in jagged frames—shouts, gunfire, the hot sting in my gut, the burn spreading like wildfire through my veins.

Gray’s grip was iron on my arm, dragging me upright as blood soaked through my shirt. My body felt detached, heavy, useless—blood running hot down my gut, my shoulder screaming where the fresh bullet had torn through.

"Boss, stay with me," Gray snarled into my ear, voice raw as he dragged. "Do not close your eyes."

The ringing in my ears turned the gunfire hollow, like I was underwater again. My head lolled, vision dimming.

"Adrien—!" Cameron’s voice, raw, furious, terrified in a way I’d never heard from him. His arm locked under my shoulders, dragging me upright against his chest as bullets snapped through the air.

"Stay with me, you bastard," he snarled, more plea than order. His other hand clutched his gun, firing wild cover shots over my head. The recoil shook us both, but he never let me fall. "Don’t you fucking close your eyes! You hear me?!" Cameron’s grip was iron, but I felt the falter in his stride—the stumble as his injured leg nearly buckled. He hissed between his teeth, a sound of pain swallowed by fury, and adjusted his hold, hauling me higher against his chest. Blood seeped down his thigh, mixing with mine, but he didn’t let go. He wouldn’t.

Gray and Reyes returned fire, moving in tandem with surgical precision, but even their fury couldn’t mask the whine of a sniper bullet tearing bark off the tree inches from Cameron’s head. The air stank of gunpowder, iron, and wet pine.

Then—the rope. Thick, swinging down from the belly of the helicopter cutting through smoke and chaos like salvation itself.

"Rope!" Gray bellowed, voice like thunder.

"Cover us!" Cameron roared back, hauling me toward it, his arm an iron bar across my chest.

Another crack. Bark exploded near my temple. Cameron cursed savagely, dragging me tighter against him, half-carrying, half-shoving me forward. "Move! Reyes—get the rope steady!"

Reyes, ghost-quick, seized the swinging line, his face grim. He braced himself as Cameron shoved my dead weight toward him. "He’s hit bad," Reyes said, urgency slicing his usual calm.

"No shit!" Cameron snapped. His grip never faltered even though he is also injured on his leg. He looped the rope around me, jerky, desperate, swearing when his hands slipped on my blood. His breath was ragged, but his voice was steady at my ear, low and sharp, dragging me out of the dark.

"Adrien. Listen to me. Open your eyes. Right now. That’s an order, cousin. You don’t get to leave me with this fucking mess."

I tried. God, I tried. My eyelids felt like iron.

Gunfire rained around us, reinforcements holding the perimeter, tracer fire ripping the night. Cameron’s arm locked tighter.

The rope jerked as Reyes signaled.

Gray’s booming gunfire covered the ascent as the winch groaned. Cameron stayed strapped beside me, one arm gripping the rope, the other crushing me against him as we rose. Bullets snapped past, the wind whipping blood and river spray into my face.

The ground fell away in fire and chaos. My head lolled, the black creeping in, but Cameron’s voice followed me, fierce and relentless, anchoring me to life.

"You’re not dying in my arms, Adrien. You hear me? You don’t get to leave me. Think of Isabella. Stay the fuck awake—"

His words blurred. The roar of the rotors swallowed everything.

And then—mercifully—darkness closed over me, soft and cold as the river’s hand.