Replacement Bride: His Rose

“Get out, King! Now! I will hold him off! Go!” shouted Emerson at the top of his lungs as all the bang-bang of the guns was deafening. Emerson and other bodyguards had made a wall right before Kingsley to hide him from the hail of bullets. The table and chairs had bullet holes in them. The metal table before Kingsley’s team was the only thing keeping them safe.

“Come out, come out, O’ great Kingsley Aguilar! Let me show you who is the boss of this town,” laughed Darcy Robinett. “My gang, Poena, is the ruler of Thornspire. No one can take it away from us. The ruthless leader, the devil himself, will be killed by me today. You think you can come to my town, and I will let your stupid gang, Dia Lucrii, take over just like that. No, no, you have another thing coming. If you are the devil, I am the God!”

“Ugh! Will he keep talking? Shut him up!” Kingsley rolled his eyes.

“You need to get out! God! You are bleeding!” shouted Emerson in anger.

“I am fine, Emer!” said Kingsley and pointed his gun at Darcy and his goons. He pressed the trigger, and a goon dropped dead. “See! What I can do,” he smiled.

The loud screech outside the mom-and-pop restaurant informed Emerson that more of Emerson’s goons had arrived. They were going to lose as their numbers were fewer.

“We really need to leave, King! Now! More of his people are coming,” shouted Emerson.

“I will kill Dudley! I will kill Dudley!” Kingsley gritted his teeth.

“You think he told Darcy about this meeting?” asked Deep Karat, a loyalist of Kingsley.

“No one else knew about this meeting,” replied Kingsley.

“Okay, before his team enters the restaurant, we need to retreat. We need to take the back door and run. Run as fast as we can. I will bring the car around. King! Make sure they don’t get to you. For now, we are going to run in different directions so that they have to go their separate ways and hence distribute the number of goons going after each one of us. Is that clear?” strategised Emerson.

“Got it!” said Kingsley.

“King! Keep pressure on your wound,” said Deep and they started moving backwards while keeping shooting at the goons trying to enter the premises.

Within seconds, they were out in the back alley, and they all started running in every direction they could see. Kingsley ran in the east direction and kept running. After running a few more paces, his path was blocked by a steel fence. In just one jump, he was over the fence. His left upper arm was bleeding profusely, and drop by drop, he kept leaving a blood trail behind him.

He was about to turn a corner when he saw Darcy’s men wandering about with machine guns. He had to stop and hide behind a dumpster. The goons kept talking on a walkie-talkie, giving real-time information to Darcy. The goons kept looking all around and were moving towards Kingsley. He knew he had to move from that position, or else he would be found.

His throat dried up when he saw another car filled with Darcy’s goons coming right his way. He knew he had to give up his position and find another hiding place. His attention was suddenly grabbed by a tall woman walking right towards him with a mask on her face. She was walking while looking down and had her ear covered with headphones. Her facemask kept moving, which signalled to Kingsley that he was singing along.

The moment the goons saw her, they hid their guns and took cover behind their cars. It was clear to Kingsley that Darcy had given them instructions not to hurt any civilians, just to kill Kingsley or capture him. He was thankful to that woman. Her waist-length brunette hair was flowing in the mild air.

She stood before the small building, whose wall gave cover to Kingsley. He looked clearly and saw the name, ‘Roseth’ written in bold letters on the glass window of the building. She moved her palm over the name, and her eyes twinkled with joy. Kingsley gasped loudly, and his mouth fell open.

All his life, he had seen blood, murder, and crimes, but for the first time, he saw such joy in anyone’s eyes. He could swear that he knew those eyes. The woman placed her hand in her brown purse and took out a heavy set of keys. She opened the door, and the bell tingled.

Kingsley once glanced at the goons and saw that they were still hidden behind their cars. They didn’t want anyone to see them. It was still early in the morning, and the business owners were not yet inside their shops. The streets were empty except for that woman. Who comes to open their shop this early, thought Kingsley.

He rolled his eyes when he realised that he too was out of the comfort of his house to take care of his business. Before the goons could find that the woman had entered her shop, Kingsley ran to the door and slipped inside. He grabbed the bell with her hand and made sure that after he shut the door, the bell would not signal to anyone that the door had opened.

He entered inside; the shop was still dark. Only a bulb was lit at the far end of the shop. The woman was nowhere to be seen.

“Where did she go?” thought Kingsley. He had his palm over his wound and kept pressure on it. He looked down, and a drop of blood was resting near his foot. He knew if anyone entered and saw that blood, they would figure out that he was there. He ran inside and took out his phone. With the help of the phone’s flashlight, he searched for anything he could use to wipe the evidence.

He saw a large box of tissues and grabbed one. He knelt down to wipe the blood when suddenly the whole shop lit up with lights. He turned to look and saw that the shop was a bakery. The display was empty now and shining bright.

Suddenly, the woman appeared before him with her hair tied in a bun and hidden under a hairnet. She had an apron tied around her body and was walking towards the display with a bag of flour in her hand.

The moment she saw Kingsley standing before her, she let out a loud shriek and the bag of flour dropped from her hands, bursting in the process and spraying the powdery flour everywhere.

Kingsley knew her shriek would inform the goons outside, and he had no time to lose. He ran towards her, grabbed her by her waist and shut her mouth with his other hand.

“Shut up! Shut up!” whispered Kingsley in a menacing tone and kept pushing her towards the back of the bakery.