Revenge

Blaine had just set up a cartoon show for his daughter on the tablet in front of her seat, when he smelled the gas.

He frowned, “Did you take the cars for their weekly maintenance check?” He said to the chauffeur in front.

“Yes chairman.” The chauffeur bowed.

Blaine relaxed. Maybe he was imagining it. 

He looked outside the window at their surroundings. Perhaps the air vent had sucked in bad air into the car.

He glanced at Olivia and the toddler was engrossed with the scene on the screen. 

He looked away again and took out his phone. 

Maybe he could get some work done at least, and check for any urgent emails his secretary had forwarded to him. 

He bent his head down to get started, and that was when he saw it.

At first, he was not sure, it was just a light mist coming from under the chauffeur’s seat in front of him. Then he saw the mist thicken and thicken till it was a cloud of white smoke.

Olivia coughed once and Blaine opened his eyes in alarm as he hurriedly took his suit off.

“What the hell is this,” he yelled, throwing his jacket over his daughter’s head. 

“Chairman.” The chauffeur’s voice came out in a panic. “I don’t know.”

“Roll down the bloody windows." He yelled, his eyes wide and red. 

His daughter was coughing more frequently now, and the chauffeur was driving haphazardly as the car was covered in smoke so thick no one could see anything.

He took Olivia out of the carseat even though it was not safe, and hugged her to his chest, still wrapped in his jacket as she coughed and coughed and cried in between.

He saw the window glass quickly disappearing as the height decreased. 

Then it happened. 

It was all very quick. 

Blaine saw the car speeding up beside them just one second before the disaster, because he had been staring at the side mirror.

He was on the floor with his daughter, just as bullets rained on them, through the open window. 

He heard his chauffeur shoot back, and then the car began to skid off the road.

But he did not dare raise his head to look up. 

Not only was he in danger, but his body was the only shield his daughter had. The bullets finally stopped raining inside his car, but he could still hear the shots from outside.

He suspected those were his guards. But he could not continue lying on the floor for one more second. 

He could feel the chauffeur no longer had control of the car, and they would crash at any moment.

He stood up, and, true to his suspicion, the chauffeur was dead and slumped against the steering wheel, his blood everywhere.

Blaine pushed the gear into park and the car stopped. 

His guards jumped out of the cars behind him, and began to run to his car.

Blaine froze, suddenly realizing he could no longer hear his daughter’s voice. 

“Olivia.” He leaned back, slamming his head into the passenger seat as he yanked his jacket off her. Her eyes were closed, squeezed shut tightly.

“Olivia!” He groaned sadly, and picked her up. 

She stiffened and began to cry again. 

“Are you hurt, are you hurt?” He held her up and turned her little body left and right as the guards finally reached them, and someone yanked the door open.

She was still crying, but he could see she had not been hit anywhere. A crowd was beginning to gather now.

“Chairman.” The chief guard was looking at him wide-eyed, and Blaine followed the man’s eyes to look down at himself. 

There was blood all over his shirt, but nowhere hurt.

“It’s the Chauffeur.” He grimaced and quickly stepped out of the car with his daughter into the fresh air. 

He saw an ambulance driving behind the police car that was speeding fast towards them. He tried to soothe Olivia as he hurried towards the ambulance, impatient to have them check his daughter.

He was worried about all that gas she had to inhale. 

The crowd was already gathering, and he knew it would not be long before the journalists arrived.

An assassination attempt on a Tucker would always be big news. He had to get out of here before then. 

He handed Olivia over to the paramedic, and she began to shriek, scared of being left alone with a stranger.

“It’s OK, princess,” he said, watching her. “Father is right here. I am here.”

The police stood beside him as he recounted the tale of all that happened since he was the only witness. The chauffeur was dead, and his daughter was a baby.

“Do you know anyone who would do something like this to you?” the sheriff who had shown up himself asked.

Blaine immediately thought of Sullivan but shook his head. If this was Sullivan who really did this, he would break his moral code and kill the bastard. 

It was one thing to do this to him, it was another thing to put his daughter’s life in danger.

He looked at her now and she was much calmer as her nanny, who looked stupefied with shock, held on to her hands.

“Would you come take a look at them? See if you recognize them?” the sheriff asked, looking up from his notes. 

Blaine frowned, but nodded. Why would he recognize them? 

But it would not hurt to check though. 

He walked behind the sheriff to the road beside his car where all the bodies were being bagged. His chauffeur and all three assassins.

He stood over them, and stared at the chauffeur as his heart broke. He knew the man well. He got married two years ago and his wife was pregnant at the moment. 

The thought that he would never witness his child being born, and his wife would never see her husband any more filled him with deep rage.

He looked away, and his eyes fell on the middle man. He frowned, recognizing him. 

This was the man that had photo bumped their picture earlier. He had been leaning against the balustrade at the other side of the hospital and seemed to be staring at them.

“I know him,” Blaine said, hurriedly fishing out his phone. He scrolled to the image, zoomed in on the man’s face and handed the phone to the sheriff.

The sheriff wore his glasses and brought the phone close to peer into the screen. Then he looked back up at the partly bagged bodies.

“That one,” Blaine pointed out the man lying between the other two assassins. The sheriff stared into the phone again, then looked back at the man and nodded.

He handed the phone back to Blaine and walked to his car.

“Bulletproof?” he asked, knocking his hand against the dented battered body of the car. 

“Yes.” Blaine gave his phone to the other cops, who emailed the image to their department. 

“It makes sense why they set that smoke up to force you to open the window,” the sheriff said, turning back around. “They had one of your staff’s help, likely your chauffeur.” He pointed to the dead man and Blaine’s jaw fell.

“The vultures are here,” the sheriff said, and Blaine turned to see journalists jumping out of their cars with their cameras.