Chapter Ninety-Five: The Shot Not Ordered
The five minutes weren't up.
The sniper didn't get the stand-down order in time. Or maybe he simply didn't care to listen. Maybe the bloodlust had already taken root, the crosshairs already hungry, the trigger already a living thing beneath his finger.
One second, we were bathed in golden afternoon light—the sweet taste of chocolate and careless laughter still warm on our tongues. The sun was honey on our skin, the wildflowers swaying in a breeze that smelled of river water and summer.
The next, the world exploded into noise and terror.
The first shot didn't hit us.
It hit the wrought-iron chair where Victor had been sitting moments before.
The metal shrieked—a high, unnatural wail—spinning violently across the terrace before clattering to the ground with a deafening clang that seemed to echo off the very sky. The sound was wrong. Too sharp. Too final.
For a fraction of a second, there was stunned silence on the terrace. Birds stopped singing. The river seemed to hold its breath.
Then the screaming started.
Victor didn't shout. He moved.
A blur of black suit and lethal intent, he was already in motion before the chair stopped spinning. One hand shoved Arshi—Jihan's wife, her face frozen in confusion, one hand pressed protectively to her belly—down behind the solid stone base of our table. The other arm hooked around my waist with the force of a steel beam, yanking me down so hard the air exploded from my lungs. Sara was caught in the same motion, dragged down with us into a huddle of terror.
"Down! Stay down!" His voice was a crack of ice, absolute, cutting through the rising panic like a blade through silk. It wasn't a suggestion. It was a command from a man who had already decided we would live.
CRACK.
Another shot. This one punched through the olive tree pot four meters away, sending a shower of ceramic and soil into the air like dark confetti. The tree tilted, then crashed onto its side, its branches clawing at the sky.
Chaos. Pure, unadulterated chaos.
Patrons screamed, overturning tables, scrambling for the restaurant doors. Silverware and glass shattered. A child wailed somewhere, a sound that clawed at my heart. Bodies collided, people trampling over each other in their desperation to escape.
But Victor was a statue of focused violence above us.
He had drawn his pistol from a shoulder holster so smoothly I barely saw the motion—just a blur of black metal and the soft, deadly snick of the safety coming off. He wasn't hiding. He was scanning, his head moving in tiny, precise increments, those cool grey eyes calculating vectors, distances, wind resistance, the trajectory of the next bullet. The screaming chaos around him was nothing but noise. He was the signal.
CRACK. A third shot. Closer.
It sparked off the marble edge of our table, missing Victor's head by inches. I felt the heat of it, smelled the sharp tang of scorched stone. A chip of marble stung my cheek.
He didn't flinch.
Didn't blink.
"Rooftop. Northeast. 300 meters. Red brick building with the faded signage." The words were clipped, precise, delivered into the small microphone hidden in his cuff. A calm report into the storm. "Three hostiles visible. One primary sniper with a scoped rifle. Two spotters or guards. Civilians are primary targets. I am compromised and outgunned. Request immediate extraction."
His gaze flicked down to me for a millisecond—just long enough to confirm I was still breathing, still conscious, still capable of following orders.
"Kim." His voice was different now. Not cold. Not clinical. Just… certain. "Listen to me carefully. You will run. On my mark. You take the two women. You go to the riverwalk stairs. You go down. You do not stop. You do not look back. Do you understand?"
My heart was a frantic bird trying to escape my ribs. My shoulder throbbed where I'd hit the ground. My breath came in short, sharp gasps. But I nodded, my hand finding Arshi's. Hers was ice-cold, trembling, her other hand still pressed protectively over the swell of her belly. Sara was gripping my other arm, her nails digging into my skin, her face white with terror.
"Victor…" I breathed, the word barely audible.
"Don't." His voice left no room for argument. No room for goodbye. "On my mark. Three… two…"
He rose up from behind the table—just enough, just a fraction of his body exposed—and fired two shots in rapid succession toward the distant rooftop. Not hopeful shots. Precise, calculated covering fire, meant to make them duck, to buy us seconds.
"ONE. GO!"
We moved.
A scrambled, clumsy crab-walk, then a desperate sprint, half-crouched, our shoes skidding on the stone tiles. Victor stayed up, a moving wall of black fabric and lethal intent, firing another shot toward the rooftop to keep their heads down. He was a shepherd guarding his flock, and the wolves were closing in.
The sprint to the edge of the terrace and down the wide stone stairs to the lower riverwalk was a blur of terror. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. Arshi stumbled, her foot catching on the edge of a step, and I hauled her up with a strength I didn't know I had, my shoulder screaming in protest. Sara was ahead, her voice hoarse as she screamed for people to get out of the way.
CRACK-CRACK.
Two more shots from above. They weren't aiming at Victor anymore.
They were tracking us.
We hit the lower path—a paved trail weaving through the parkland beside the river, lined with trees and benches and the scattered debris of fleeing picnickers. It was less exposed than the terrace, but still a shooting gallery. People were running in every direction, diving behind benches, trees, trash cans. A man in a business suit was crouched behind a newspaper stand, his phone pressed to his ear, his face ashen.
"Keep moving! To the pedestrian tunnel under the bridge!" I yelled, pointing ahead to a dark stone underpass about a hundred meters away. It was the only real cover for half a mile. The only chance.
CRACK.
A bullet whined off the path ahead of us, kicking up a spray of asphalt. They had the angle. They were herding us.
Arshi cried out, her steps faltering. She was pale now—too pale—one hand pressed to her belly, the other clutching my arm like a lifeline. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. "I can't… I can't run… the baby…"
"Yes, you can!" Sara screamed, grabbing her other arm, half-dragging her forward. "For the baby! For both of you! RUN!"
We were twenty meters from the tunnel.
So close. I could see the darkness inside, the cool stone walls, the promise of shelter.
I saw the glint.
A fractional shift in the light from the rooftop. The sun catching something metallic. A scope adjusting. A breath being held.
Instinct—raw, primal, ancient—took over. I didn't think. I shoved Arshi forward with all my strength, throwing my body sideways into her, trying to become a shield between her and the distant flash of light.
A searing, white-hot pain tore across the top of my left shoulder.
It wasn't an impact. It was a rip—fabric and skin parting under the kiss of a bullet that had missed its mark by inches. The black tank top shredded. Blood welled up instantly, hot and shockingly red against the dark fabric.
The force of it spun me around.
I hit the ground hard, my vision blurring for a second, the world tilting on its axis. The pain was a delayed explosion—a deep, burning agony that started in my shoulder and radiated outward, stealing my breath, stealing my thoughts.
"Ahhh!"
Sara's scream was raw, desperate, cut through the chaos like a blade.
Arshi, who had fallen to her knees from my shove, scrambled back to me. Her eyes were wide with horror, fixed on the blood spreading across my shoulder like a dark flower blooming. She wasn't crying anymore. Her face was pale, but her hands were steady as she reached for me.
"No, no, no… I can't lose you again…" The words were a whisper, a prayer, as she fumbled with the light scarf around her neck—a soft, cream-colored thing she'd bought at a market years ago. With trembling hands, she folded it and pressed it hard against the wound.
The pressure made me gasp, my vision whiting out for a moment.
"Hold this. Press down. Hard." Her voice was steadier now, the voice of a woman who had survived things, who knew that panic was a luxury. I did as she said, gritting my teeth against the pain, my fingers pressing the makeshift bandage into my own flesh. The scarf was immediately stained crimson.
Sara crouched over us, sobbing, her eyes darting between me and the distant rooftop where the glint had been. "Oh god, oh god, you're shot, you're shot…"
"Tunnel…" I gasped, the word torn from me. "Now. Get her to the tunnel. Both of you. GO."
We stumbled the last few meters—a three-legged, bleeding, sobbing wreck of women clinging to each other—and collapsed into the dank, cool darkness of the stone underpass.
The air was different here. Cold. Still. It smelled of moss and old water and the faint, metallic tang of my own blood. We were safe from the direct line of fire.
For now.
Outside, the sound of Victor's gunfire had changed. It was sharper now. Faster. The staccato rhythm of a close-quarters firefight, bullets punching into flesh and stone. The sniper's shots had stopped.
They'd sent people down.
They were coming for us.
I leaned against the cold stone wall, breathing in ragged gulps, each inhale a knife in my shoulder. Arshi kept pressure on the wound, her tears now silent, mixing with the dirt on her cheeks. Her other hand never left her belly. Sara peered out from the edge of the tunnel, then flinched back as more gunfire echoed—closer now, much closer.
"He's alone out there," Sara whispered, her voice trembling. "He can't fight them all."
I thought of Victor. The sarcastic, statistical, ice-cold sentinel who had called my preferred cereal "nutritionally suboptimal" and meant it as a professional assessment. The man who had eaten a single raspberry and looked like he'd discovered a new emotion. The one who had crouched beside my bed during a thunderstorm, not because it was his job, but because he understood that some fears couldn't be fixed with guns.
He was out there now. A lone black silhouette against a field of chaos, holding off an unknown number of armed men to give us these precious seconds.
My protector.
Our protector.
Tears of pain, fear, and a fierce, unexpected loyalty blurred my vision. He wasn't just Taehyun's weapon. In this moment, bleeding in a tunnel, listening to the sound of a man fighting for us, he felt like family.
And he was fighting a battle he might not win.
I clutched Arshi's hand with my good one, feeling the tremor in her fingers, the warmth of her skin.
"They're coming," I breathed, listening to the shouts and running footsteps growing nearer outside the tunnel entrance. Boots on stone. Men yelling orders. The cold, efficient sounds of hunters closing in. "Taehyun… Jihan… They have to be coming."
We shared a look, the three of us—a mirror of pure, helpless dread.
Not just for ourselves.
For the man who had become our shield.
For the husbands racing toward a warzone, hearts in their throats, prayers on their lips.
For the future that hung by a thread in the crossfire of a shot that was never supposed to be fired.
I pressed my hand harder against my shoulder, felt the sticky warmth of blood between my fingers, and closed my eyes.
"Please," I whispered to the darkness. "Please hurry."