Hostage to Love

Chapter 27

"Viper, no!" Wyatt commanded with a voice that sliced through the marble cathedral's electric tension.

Viper's painted mask contorted with volcanic rage, his rifle locked on Addison's trembling form. "Thirty seconds! Your princess dies because she ruined everything!"

"We have the evidence!" Rose declared with tactical urgency. "Mission accomplished!"

"Mission destroyed!" Viper exploded. "We could have walked out with fifty million and justice for our families! Instead, Romeo got distracted by his ex and blew our perfect operation!"

"My family died too!" Viper's voice cracked with raw fury. "Henderson Consulting murdered my wife and daughter! I wanted justice AND the money to disappear forever! But your bleeding heart compromised everything!"

"The evidence will bring justice!" Wyatt declared.

"Evidence doesn't bring back the dead!" Viper snarled. "Money could have bought new lives! But you chose her over the mission!"

"Time's up!"

The rifle erupted with thunder. But instead of tearing through Addison's heart, the bullet punched into Wyatt's chest as he hurled his body between weapon and woman. The impact spun him like a broken doll, arterial blood spraying across marble in crimson arcs that painted the cathedral floor.

Bone cracked against stone as Wyatt crashed down, the sound echoing through sudden silence like breaking glass. His tactical vest had deflected nothing—the bullet found flesh and lung with devastating precision.

Blood bubbled from his lips with each desperate breath. His eyes, usually sharp with military focus, grew distant as shock claimed his nervous system. Crimson spread beneath him in expanding pools that reflected cathedral light like dark mirrors.

Jaxon erupted from his position with fury that transformed executive composure into pure violence. His shoulder drove into Viper's chest with battering-ram force, sending both men crashing against unforgiving marble.

Bone met stone with sickening impact as Jaxon's fists found their target. Viper's painted mask cracked under systematic brutality, consciousness departing with each devastating blow until theatrical rage dissolved into motionless silence.

Addison collapsed beside Wyatt's bleeding form, her hands pressing against wounds that pumped life onto cold stone with each weakening heartbeat. His blood soaked through her fingers, warm and thick and terrifyingly abundant.

"Wyatt!" Her voice shattered across marble like breaking crystal.

His chest rose and fell with mechanical irregularity, each breath a battle against punctured lung tissue and spreading trauma. Pink foam gathered at the corners of his mouth where blood mixed with failing oxygen.

"Don't leave me," she whispered, her tears falling onto his face like rain on drought-stricken earth.

Rose conducted swift medical assessment with battlefield efficiency. "Punctured lung, arterial damage. He's bleeding internally."

"SWAT incoming!" Brick warned. "Sixty seconds!"

Rose vanished through emergency exits with tactical precision, her escape timed to avoid approaching law enforcement while her brother fought for life on marble that had become his potential deathbed.

Wyatt's eyes found Addison's through pain that threatened to drag him into darkness. With tremendous effort that cost precious strength, he raised trembling fingers to touch her tear-stained cheek.

"You were everything," he whispered with voice barely audible above his labored breathing. "Every sunrise in the desert, I saw your face. Every star, I wished for you."

His words came in broken fragments between gasps that grew shallower with each attempt.

"Loving you... only thing I did right. My light when everything... went dark."

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as consciousness flickered like dying flame.

"Promise me... be happy. Let yourself love again."

"I promise," she sobbed. "But you fight. Fight for me."

"For you... fight death itself," he breathed with smile that transformed scarred features into something transcendent.

His eyes held hers with desperate intensity, love blazing brighter than encroaching darkness.

"Love you, Addison Blackhawk. Beyond everything... that tried to... keep us apart."

His fingers slipped from her face as consciousness departed like tide retreating from shore. His breathing grew shallow, irregular, each breath a victory against the spreading darkness claiming his broken body.