"Pardon me, ma'am," the Minion mumbled, stepping out of her way with an awkward bow of his head. He glanced back at Dragos and cleared his throat. "Mr. Masters, I'll be right back."
Dragos nodded, his gaze trained fully on Tavia Fairchild as he lifted himself to a sitting position on the floor. The Minion's effort to cover his slip seemed to satisfy the senator's pretty assistant. As the officer walked away, her look of confusion muted into one of concern as she turned back to Dragos.
"Paramedics have been called and an ambulance is on the way ..." Her voice trailed off. She looked ill, the color in her cheeks draining away as she drew nearer to him and gaped at all the blood soaking his white silk tuxedo shirt and the ballroom floor underneath him. Her balance seemed a little off as she wrapped her arms around her middle. She met his eyes if only to avoid looking at his injury, and gave a small shake of her head. "I'm sorry. I'm just a little woozy. I don't do well in these types of situations. I've been known to faint at the sight of a skinned knee."
Dragos permitted a small curve of his lips. "You can hardly expect to be perfect at everything, Miss Fairchild."
She frowned, visibly embarrassed. At least her queasiness seemed to help her forget about his Minion's careless slip of the tongue. She squared her shoulders, snapping herself back into the role of the consummate professional. "I've just left Senator Clarence and the vice president, Mr. Masters. They're both unharmed and in Secret Service custody as we speak. Their main concern was for your well-being, of course."
"There is no need," Dragos assured her. "I'm certain the wound appears much worse than it truly is." To demonstrate, he started to get up on his feet.
"Oh, I don't think you should - " She rushed forward to assist him, but it was her body that wobbled more than his, her face going pale again, cheeks sallow.
"I will be fine," Dragos told her. As he spoke, the Minion police officer came back into the ballroom and took Tavia's place at his side, gently removing her as he informed Dragos that his car was waiting out back as requested.
"Don't you think you should wait for the EMTs?" she asked, incredulous. "You've been shot, Mr. Masters. You've lost an awful lot of blood."
He gave a mild shake of his head as his Minion helped him take a few steps. "It will take more than this to stop me, I promise you."
She looked less than convinced. "You belong in the Emergency Room."
"My personal physicians are best equipped to look after me," he replied, unfazed as he was smoothly escorted away by his Minion and another officer who'd come over to lend a hand.
"Besides, you have other, more pressing things to take care of, Miss Fairchild."
He gestured toward the open front entrance of the house, where outside, the yard was beginning to crowd with arriving news vans and bright camera lights. Tavia Fairchild straightened her burgundy gown and lifted her head, visibly girding herself for the onslaught of reporters already pushing their way into the house. In the distance, the siren from the arriving ambulance screamed.
As he was being led away, Dragos heard the young woman's low, whispered curse, but when he glanced back at her, Tavia Fairchild was marching out to meet the throng of vultures like the very picture of poised calm.
"Is it true the gunman had been lurking in the senator's house?" someone shouted at her.
"Where are the vice president and the senator now?" another reporter demanded. And still more panicked questions, one after the other: "Was the shooting an attempt on Senator Clarence, or is there reason to believe the vice president was the intended target?"
"Could this have been a possible terrorist act? Did anyone see the shooter?" "Is it true there was only one man responsible for the attack?" "Do the police or Secret Service know anything about who might have done this, or why?"
Dragos smiled to himself as he exited out the back of the house. Perhaps tonight's unexpected chaos would prove useful to him. Perhaps all the frenzied questions and worry were just what he needed to drive the final nail in the Order's coffin.
The bullet he'd taken tonight had been a shot fired over his prow - one he was damned good and ready to return.
As he climbed into his waiting limousine, Dragos retrieved his blood-splattered cell phone from the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. No more waiting for the opportune moment to strike against the Order. It was time to shut them down hard. Permanently, if he had anything to say about it. With his call to a backwoods landline in northern Maine ringing on the other end, Dragos watched through the limo's dark-tinted windows as Tavia Fairchild stood under the lights of a dozen news cameras, calmly addressing the agitated crowd.
While she assured them all that everything was under control, Dragos gave the go-ahead on a mission that would soon send the entire city into a state of total hysteria.
Chapter Thirty
It was after four in the morning when they arrived at the location Gideon had directed them to in rural west-central Georgia. Corinne was exhausted, fatigued from the long drive and the emotionally charged confrontation she'd had with Hunter several hours ago. But more than either of those things, it was the thought of actually being there - a few hundred yards from the old, riverside log cabin where Nathan might be living - that had all of her nerve endings hyperalert and jangling.
If she'd been nervous before, anxious for the moment she hoped she'd soon be looking at her son and promising him the life she wanted so badly to give him, now she dreaded it just as equally. Mira's vision had changed everything. Hunter's self-described role in that vision had left her doubting everything she'd been so certain of before.
Everything, except Hunter's love for her.
It was the only thing she could cling to, perhaps foolishly, as he turned off the truck's ignition and they sat in the darkened vehicle, watching the dimly lit cabin through the five acres of woods that surrounded it.
"You swear you're coming right back?" she asked him. He'd brought her with him to the location, but he'd adamantly drawn the line at allowing her to accompany him inside the house itself. "Please, be careful."
He nodded, even as he strapped on a pair of blades to the holster that rode his thigh over the top of his black fatigues. The long-sleeved shirt she'd washed and dried at Amelie's for him completed his transformation back to the warrior who'd escorted her from Boston to Detroit not so very long ago.
But now Hunter was anything but stoic or unreadable. His golden eyes caressed her with tenderness at the same time his strong hand reached out to draw her close for his kiss. "I love you," he told her fiercely. "I do not want you to worry."