Chapter 11 - The Extraction
The blinding beam of a searchlight cut through the stained-glass remnants of the chapel windows, illuminating the swirling dust and cordite smoke. The heavy thrum of rotor blades beat against the roof with deafening intensity.
“Federal extraction?” Elena shouted over the noise, clutching Leo tightly to her chest.
Julian shook his head weakly, struggling to keep his eyes open as he leaned against the altar rail. “No. Private. Marcus... my chief of security. He tracked the beacon in my watch.”
The chapel doors were kicked off their hinges, and four operators dressed in sterile black uniforms without insignia flooded the nave, their assault rifles raised. A tall, grim-faced man with graying hair lowered his weapon the moment he spotted Julian slumped on the platform.
“Boss!” Marcus moved quickly, kneeling beside Julian and applying a combat tourniquet to his torn shoulder. “We have an air ambulance idling at the southern clearing. We need to move now. County units are ten minutes out, and federal task forces are mobilizing from Boston.”
“The woman and the boy first,” Julian commanded, his voice fading into a strained rasp. “Get them on the bird.”
Marcus nodded to his men, who gently took Leo from Elena’s arms. The boy cried out, reaching for his mother, but Elena stayed anchored to Julian’s side, her fingers gripping his bloody wrist.
“I’m not leaving you here to bleed out,” she said, her voice shaking with fierce defiance. “You don’t get to play the tragic hero and die on me now, Julian. You dragged us back into this hell. You survive it.”
Julian looked at her through heavy, half-closed lids, the ruthless mob boss completely stripped away, leaving only a broken man staring at the only woman who had ever defied him. “If you stay with me, Elena... you will never be free. The city will hunt us.”
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“Then we burn the city,” she whispered, leaning down to press her forehead against his. “Get up, Julian.”
Supported by Marcus and another operator, Julian was hoisted to his feet, groaning through clenched teeth as the world spun around him. Together, they stumbled out into the torrential rain, toward the waiting black helicopter whose blades were churning the mud into a violent spray. As the skids left the ground and the burning chapel vanished into the black abyss of the pines below, Julian’s head fell back against the cabin wall, his pulse flickering dangerously close to nothing.
