Chapter 11 - Blood on the Asphalt
The sharp crack of a rifle shot split the roaring wind. The bullet tore through the fleshy part of Ryan’s upper shoulder, spinning him violently into the mud. Clara screamed, stumbling forward with Leo wrapped tightly in her arms, vanishing into the thick blackberry bushes along the tree line just as Ryan had ordered.
Marcus lowered the rifle slightly, a grim smile touching his lips as he stepped down the embankment toward the fallen man. ""Eleanor said you’d be predictable, Ryan. Always throwing yourself on the sword for the peasant girl.""
Ryan lay on his side in the mud, his left arm numb, warm blood soaking through the torn flannel and denim. He heard Marcus’s boots sloshing closer through the thick weeds. Five steps. Four steps.
""She’s offering you one last chance,"" Marcus said, stopping six feet away and leveling the barrel at Ryan’s head. ""Surrender the child, sign the papers, and she’ll let you live on a modest monthly allowance in another country. Fight back, and I bury you in this ditch and tell the police Clara panicked and drowned the boy herself.""
""You really don't know my mother,"" Ryan spat, blood speckling his lips. ""Once you do her dirty work, Marcus... you’re just another loose end.""
Marcus’s finger tightened on the trigger. ""Maybe. But right now, you’re the loose end.""
Before Marcus could pull the trigger, Ryan’s good hand surged upward from the mud, hurling a fistful of blinding, rocky clay directly into the mercenary's face.
Marcus roared in pain, stepping back as the abrasive grit scratched across his open eyes. His rifle fired blind, the round ricocheting harmlessly off the concrete bridge above.
Ryan drove himself upward, tackling Marcus around the waist and driving both of them down into the raging, muddy runoff of the ditch. The rifle flew from Marcus’s grip, vanishing into the deep silt. Marcus slammed an elbow into Ryan’s wounded shoulder, sending white-hot agony through Ryan’s entire nervous system.
Gasping for air, Ryan pinned Marcus beneath the surface of the rushing water, wrapping both hands around the mercenary’s tactical vest, using all his remaining strength to hold the larger man down against the riverbed. Marcus thrashed wildly, his fists hammering into Ryan’s ribs, but Ryan did not let go. The image of Leo gasping for air on the bedroom floor burned in his mind like fire.
Marcus’s struggles grew weaker, until finally, the mercenary went limp in the mud.
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Ryan rolled off, collapsing onto the embankment, coughing up bile and rain. He forced himself to his feet, clutching his bleeding shoulder, and stumbled toward the tree line. ""Clara!"" he called out weakly.
Silence answered him. Then, a branch snapped behind him.
