Chapter 7 - The Unlikely Ally
The sudden grip knocked the wind completely out of Leo’s lungs. He tried to scream, but the heavy glove smothered the sound, vibrating against his lips. He thrashed wildly, desperately shielding Lily with his body as the toddler let out a sharp cry of fright.
"Quiet, kid, unless you want them to turn this whole alley into a graveyard," a rough, gravelly voice hissed right next to his ear.
The hand pulled away, and Leo stumbled back against the damp brick wall, panting heavily. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, the faint ambient light filtering down from the street above revealed the rugged, weather-beaten face of Marcus. The driver was clutching his left side, where a dark stain soaked through his black uniform shirt, his breathing shallow and painful.
"Marcus?" Leo whispered in utter disbelief. "I thought... I thought they got you."
"They almost did," Marcus grimaced, pressing his palm against his bleeding side. "I jumped over the guardrail and dropped into the maintenance scaffolding before those goons could line up a clean shot. But we aren't safe yet. Viktor’s men control every exit within a ten-block radius of these docks."
Leo carefully shifted Lily in his arms. The little girl had finally gone entirely limp, her breathing alarmingly shallow, her forehead burning with heat. "She's burning up, Marcus. The cut on her knee is infected, and we don't have any medicine. If we don't get her to a doctor soon, we're going to lose her."
Marcus cursed in Spanish, sliding down the brick wall until he was sitting flat on the wet ground. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, encrypted burner phone, tapping the screen with blood-smudged fingers. "Arthur knew this might happen. That's why he gave you that key. The locker at the bus station doesn't just hold information about your mother—it holds the financial backing we need to get you both out of the country."
"I don't care about money!" Leo snapped, tears of frustration finally spilling over his eyelashes. "I care about my mom! Arthur said she started this war. What did she do, Marcus? Why are these men hunting us?"
Marcus looked up at the boy, hesitation flickering in his dark eyes. For a long moment, the older man seemed to weigh the danger of the truth against the protective ignorance of childhood. Finally, he let out a heavy, defeated sigh.
"Your mother was the chief forensic accountant for Viktor’s shipping conglomerate," Marcus explained softly, wincing as he shifted his weight. "She discovered that the company was a front for international arms trafficking. She copied their entire digital ledger onto a secure flash drive and hid it in your house before she went into hiding to draw them away from you."
Leo stared at the driver, the pieces of the puzzle violently snapping together in his mind. The locked box beneath the floorboards. The mysterious phone calls. The men in tactical gear. It was all real.
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Before Marcus could say another word, the beam of a high-powered flashlight cut through the darkness at the far end of the alley, accompanied by the distinct, metallic click of a shotgun being loaded.
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