Let Freedom Ring With A Shotgun Blast Novels & Stories

There’s a warmth about the way he mentioned it earlier, like that garage is his little world. Before leaving, he promised he’d teach me his “killer sandwich” recipe someday. I smiled and said I’d hold him to it, but deep down, I know that “someday” probably won’t come. Once I go back home, I doubt I’ll be allowed out again. Freedom, it seems, was always temporary for me. But none of that is what my mind keeps circling back to. It’s the ring. Anastasia’s ring. The image flashes in my head again, the faint mark of that same ring on the face of the dead man as if someone had constantly hit him. Like it had been pressed into him like a brand of punishment.

He had to focus on freeing the captives in the building. Axe's hand moved to remove the wedding ring and put it away in his pants pocket. His movements were too nimble to pull out the firearm tucked under his clothes. He began to focus on the mission. Axe's footsteps were barely audible as he carried his body out of the hideout. He smiled wryly to find only one guard, which meant one of them had already entered the building. Raised to shoulder height was a 1911 colt with a sound soaker in the muzzle. With just one press, the shell shot against the wind through the cloth-clad flesh. The shot body gave a startled response, before collapsing to the ground with blood pouring out.

FREDERICK “Die motherfucker,” I gritted, pressing my finger into the claw of the trigger and feeling the gun jerk in my hands, the impact pulling me forward so that I tumbled into the stone flooring. “Come on! Go go go!” I screamed through gritted teeth, waving my hands wildly at Darlene and pushing her around the car as she surged through the barrage of shots pummeling us and firing off a few more rounds as the Umbrella man roared with pain, tearing the knife from his eye with an impossibly loud sucking sound.

Just as the priest began to read the vows, Carter broke through the final line of defense. He stumbled into the church, holding up the silver ring, and screamed, "Maeve! I would give anything, just for you to look back at me one more time!" "I was wrong, I was so wrong! Give me a chance!" Just as the sacred, solemn notes of the organ began to play, a single, muffled gunshot echoed from outside the church. From the corner of my eye, I saw Carter collapse in a pool of blood. The ring slipped from his loosening grasp, rolled away, and was swept by the muddy rainwater into the darkness of a storm drain.

From there, Lexus’s arms were confined in industrial-grade restraints, and his hands were secured together in prisoner-grade suppression shackles. As if that wasn’t enough insurance, the male wore a double clasped full guard muzzle. A full metal piece covered the alpha’s mouth and nose, and small holes throughout provided the only access to fresh air. Azrin realized Lex must have also been wearing a bit, much like the contraptions humans used on tamed horses. Although Lexus growled at him, it was far too muffled to have just been the muzzle.

She looked at Abram, who lay unconscious in the bilge water. She looked at the dark water rising around her ankles. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the small, silver cylinder Abram had given her. The detonator for the skiff’s fuel line. "If I can't be free," she whispered, her thumb hovering over the button. "Nobody gets to own us." The sniper’s finger tightened on the trigger.

I worked through the target, making micro adjustments, grip firm despite the growing pressure in my head. Fourth shot. Clean. Fifth. Sixth. The seventh shot left the barrel, and something went wrong in my left ear that had nothing to do with the shot. A sharp, high-pitched ring tore through everything, drowning me completely. The world tilted. My grip gave out before I could stop it, and the gun slipped from my hand, hitting the concrete with a dull sound I felt more than I heard. I stood there for a second. Then pressed two fingers hard against the side of my head, jaw clenched, waiting for the ringing to stop.

I turned toward the heavy oak desk—immaculate, like everything in his controlled world. I opened my fist. The silver ring gleamed in my palm. Frederick’s eyes locked on it. Something dangerous flickered—not anger, not yet. Something deeper. Too late. I threw the ring onto the table. The sharp clang echoed like a gunshot. Neither of us moved. The ring spun once. Twice. Then settled between us. A tiny circle. A broken promise. Frederick stared in silence. Slowly, he lifted his gaze to mine. And for the first time—

I froze. A gun.

I need him to answer me. Aurora’s voice came again, desperate. "Dominic, we have to find it before it’s too late!" Everything happened in a blur. I reached out, trying to snatch the ring back from Patrick’s hand. That ring meant power, it meant control. I wasn’t about to let him walk away with it. But Patrick was faster than I expected. A gunshot echoed through the room. I barely managed to dodge, rolling to the side as the bullet grazed my arm. The pain burned, but I didn’t stop. I pulled the trigger twice, one, two, hitting Patrick square in the chest.