win is if she had chosen someone else to marry.
“Your father left very clear instructions, Liesel. If you fell in love with Langston, then only one of you survives. Only one of you will be walking out of this temple alive. It doesn’t matter which one of you it is. Either the two of you decide, or I do,” the woman says.
I’ve found all the exits in this room. It’s one woman against the two of us. I have a gun in the band of my pants. I just have to reach for it and shoot her dead faster than she can pull the trigger. More importantly, I have to ensure that Liesel doesn’t get shot.
Liesel seems to be trying to read my mind as I plan out our escape. I don’t know if she gets the message or agrees with it, but when I whisper, “Now.” Liesel takes the hint and dives as hard as she can underneath the table.
I dive after her as I grab my gun and aim at the woman.
I fire.
The woman fires.
“You okay?” I ask Liesel.
She nods.
“We have to get out of here. Crawl behind me toward that back door. Understood?” I ask.
She nods.
I fire rapidly in the direction of the woman as Liesel starts crawling. I use my body to shield her, but the woman hasn’t fired at us since I aimed my gun at her. She seems to be hiding behind the wall.
“Go!” I yell.
Liesel runs; I run after her.
We throw open the back door, exit, and find ourselves on a garden terrace.
It’s eerily quiet out here. We have to trek around the temple to get to our car. I don’t spot the woman who was shooting at us, and I don’t know if she has anyone else working for her, so I keep Liesel behind me as I hold out my gun, and we start creeping around the outside of the temple.
We don’t make it a step before we are being fired upon. We duck down behind a pillar as I return fire.
“Oh my god,” Liesel says as she catches a quick glance of the garden before she hides behind the pillar.
My eyes scan the garden. There are at least thirty men approaching us in tactical gear.
Fuck.
“We need to get back in the temple.”
“We can’t. They have us surrounded. There are men coming out of the temple now.”
I glance behind us and see she’s right—more men storm out of the temple.
I have a gun with limited bullets. I don’t think Liesel even has a gun. We have no backup team coming to rescue us. It’s just the two of us, and as good as I am, I can’t take down this many men. We need a miracle.
And if someone has to die, it’s going to be me, not her.
28
Liesel
There are so many guns pointed in our direction right now. We are crouched behind a pillar. Langston has a gun with a limited number of bullets left. I don’t see a way out of this.
And yet, all I can think about is how much of an asshole my father was. It would’ve been terrible enough for the fact that he wasn’t around for most of my life. He ran a criminal organization and destroyed other people’s lives. And instead of simply letting me inherit whatever this treasure is, he created an elaborate game that I have no chance of winning.
My father wanted me dead.