Page 58 of Abundance of Obsession

The fresh evening air brushes against my face the moment I step outside. The gentle breeze is a wonderful relief for my heated body. When Damien stands right next to me, he puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me close. I don’t protest—quite the opposite. I let my eyelids droop and breathe in his scent. It feels nice to be pressed against him.

“It’s a beautiful evening.”

I open my eyes and look him straight in the face. “That’s true. And I had a good time.”

He wants to kiss me again. I see it. Out of the corner of my eye, however, some movement on the street catches my attention. Everything happens so fast that I don’t have time to think.

A black SUV with tinted windows is speeding down the street. On the passenger side, the window rolls down in slow motion, and the first thing I see is the barrel of a machine gun. It’s as black as the car.

My heart stops.

I forget how to breathe.

A wave of heat spreads through my body, while a shiver runs down my spine. My eyes snap open, and my lips part.

I see only one thing—a wolf’s mask.

“Get down!” The shriek escapes my lips.

But before Damien can react, I push him with all my strength. He, holding me in his arms, drags me along with him. We’re falling together, out of control, and at that moment, the sound rings out.

Crack, crack, crack, crack…

In movies, in scenes resembling this, everything happens in slow motion. In reality, everything speeds up.

The bullets slam into the restaurant’s brick wall with a series of booms. The windows shatter into a million pieces. Chaos roars in my ears.

Damien doesn’t let go of me. He lands on the sidewalk himself, slamming his whole body against the concrete while cushioning the impact of my fall. My body strikes his, but his fall inflicts more pain.

My eyes are closed, my jaws clenched, and not even a squeak escapes my lips.

One of Damien’s arms is still wrapped around my waist, while the other covers my skull, pressing it close to him. In a split second, he rolls us over, and now I’m lying on the ground with his body covering me.

Gunshots echo for the next few seconds. They’re followed by screams and a woman’s sobs. Suddenly, everything goes still. I hear only the screech of tires, and then it grows quiet, though in my ears, I still hear that terrifying sound of machine gun fire.

The sound of footsteps reaches my consciousness.

Damien is hovering over me, and I can breathe deeply again. I hadn’t even realized how tightly he’d been holding me just a moment ago; I could barely catch my breath.

My eyes open, afraid of what I might see. Two men in black suits are holding guns in their hands. One of them is frantically looking around while the other is staring at Damien.

“Sir, are you all right?” one asks.

“No,” Damien whispers. “Yes. We’re fine. I think.”

Even though he’s speaking to the man, his gaze doesn’t leave me. He lifts his weight off me and sits down beside me. Grabbing me by the shoulders, he helps me sit up too. I must look a mess. And I don’t care.

“Are you okay, my love?”

I shake my head as his eyes fall on my knee. My gaze wanders there too. When I fell, I must have hit my knee on the concrete, tearing my stockings, scraping off skin, and causing a small trickle of blood to seep from the wound.

Damien’s icy gaze lands on one of the suited men. His tone is low and equally frosty. “Where the fuck were you? How the fuck did none of you pick up on the threat?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” replies the one who’s been scanning the area. “We didn’t expect an attack. I don’t know how this happened.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Damien growls.

That won’t be a pleasant conversation, and we all know it all too well. The fear in the eyes of his—I assume—bodyguard confirms my suspicion.