Eminem - Not Afraid

"I thought you said you had the cities under control." Gideon yelled over the noise. Judging by the sounds of heavy and rapid gun fire - this wasn't an ordinary scare tactic. This was a full blown attack.

"I said "at the moment"" Tobias said, rolling his eyes.

Gideon's arms were tightly wrapped around Rory's waist, pulling her close to his body. He needed to make sure she got out unscathed, she was the most important thing to him right now. Securities have began rushing people out the back and the people who could fight stayed.

Gideon flipped their table on its side, ushering Rory behind it just as men with military rifles bursted in the room. They fired, hitting the last of the people rushing out the room and anyone who wasn't behind cover.

Rory watched them fall with a scream. She tightly sealed her eyes shut and covered her ears with her hands drowning out the terrifying noises. Gideon's big frame was shielding her as she was crouched over. A gun was in his hand, aiming over the table and taking out the men with accurate detail.

"Oh fuck" he muttered as more men piled into the room.

He looked over to Sebastian who had ran in action the moment the explosions exploded. He had already taken down and disarmed four men coming from the end of the hall. Sensing Gideon's stare on him, Sebastian grabbed a discarded rifle and shoot in this way over to the table. He looked over seeing Rory knelt in between Gideon's thighs. She needed to be taken out of here. This wasn't a place for her to be.

He glanced around at the devastated hall and the fallen bodies - they were coming at all sides now.

"Get her out of here." Gideon ordered, "I want no scratch on her."

"Sí." He nodded, grabbing Rory's forearm. "Give me cover."

Sebastian swung the rifle over his shoulders. He helped Rory to her feet, tucking her under himself as they ran towards the back exit. Bullets were fired at their heads and narrowly missing. They hit the glass panel windows and the marble sculpture, shattering them into a thousand pieces.

Rory yelped as the shards fell on them causing tiny tears. They made it outside near the massive swimming pool where the once clear water was now stained red.

Her stomach twisted at the sight of fallen bodies swimming in them.

"Sebastian!"

They pivoted to face Flora who was knelt behind a row of bushes with Calliope and other guests behind her. Some were bleeding over their tore clothing while others were unscathed with frightful expressions on their faces.

Before Rory and Sebastian could even make it to the hiding place, bullets were fired at their feet and screams erupted. Grabbing Rory's body, they dived behind the covers together. They fell onto the stone ground with a thump, the air leaving their lungs.

Moments later, Sebastian was on his knees with the gun in his hand as he opened fire. The enemies fall one by one - Sebastian not wasting a single bullet. Once the last man falls, splashing into the pool, the air goes still. He rounded from behind the covers and as expected, he spotted a single movement in the corner of his eyes.

Sebastian fired the last bullet into the soldier's chest but it only got lodged in his chest for a moment before bouncing off. A bulletproof vest. The soldier came at him with a knife. He used the rifle to block, hold and they strike in the abdomen with his knee.

They grappled, fighting to be the one who made the final kill. Sebastian had his arms wrapped securely around the soldier's neck, forced the air out his lungs turning him an ugly blue. He dropped the knife and rolled them both over causing their bodies to fall over the edge and into the pool.

"Sebastian!" He could hear Rory's muffled voice called.

The chlorine burned his eyes and the water restricted his movements but one thing was for sure, he was a good swimmer and could hold his breath longer than the average person. Skills picked up from the time he was in the military.

Grabbing the soldier from behind, he wound his arms around his neck once again and squeezed, pushing the muscles of his biceps roughly into his windpipe.

With a twist, the soldier turned limp and his body surfaced - floating lifeless with the rest of the corpses.

Finally after what felt like an eternity, Sebastian swam up, gasping for air.

"Where the fuck is my wife?" Gideon's voice boomed, he was seething with angry to the point the vein in his forehead was visible.

He was searching the crowd for a mane of curly blonde hair but there was none except he did find a red ribbon laying on the floor. One identical to the one in her hair. Gideon was sure it was hers.

"She should be here!" Sebastian rasped as he climbed out the pool. "She was with Flora and Calliope, and the rest of the guests."

He too searched the crowd and she was not here. Sebastian swallows, fuck, he was supposed to be looking after her. He was only underwater for what felt like a couple of seconds. How did she vanish so suddenly?

"They wanted her." Flora spoke up, shaking. She was in Tobias's arms head resting on his chest with tears staining her flushed cheeks. "They took her with them. They just left with her and no one else."

"Why?!" The 3 men said in unison.

Gideon and Tobias thought back and the realisation sank in. The firing had stopped suddenly, the soldiers had drawn back baffling them both since they under the impression it was meant to be a fight to the death. It was all just a cover up to kidnap his wife.

"Fuck!" Gideon yelled at the sky. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

"Why do they even want her?" Sebastian frowned.

Rory and Gideon had only been married for a month, and she had spent the entire month hidden in the Medellín estate. This was their first public appearance together.

"Right now, I have men working on who was responsible." Tobias stated, "I think we will find out once we know who's behind this."

"I'm not waiting." Gideon spat. "Sebastian, bring up the GNSS network."

"You have your wife chipped?" Tobias said, stunned though not entirely surprised. Having known Gideon a long time, he was a true mad man.

"She's not a dog." He replied with a pointed glare, "I fitted a GPS device into her wedding band."

"My phone is wrecked." Sebastian sighed, digging his phone from his back pocket. The device won't work now not after taking a good swim in a chlorine water and blood.

"I want her location ASAP."

"Sí."

~*~

Ropes tired around her ankles and wrists, rubbing against her delicate skin and biting painful into her flesh. Each twist and turn was meant to cause her pain so, she stopped struggling.

After Sebastian had tumbled into the pool, another soldier arrived and he grabbed her and only her. She fought him until he pressed the hand metal of a gun against the back of her head.

Rory stopped fighting and followed him along, not wanting to die. It was normal, she guessed, to be afraid of death. Perhaps that's why she didn't put up much of a fight.

She had been pushed into a van with a few other soldiers who spoken into a radio. They all spoke Greek so it was difficult for her to understand.

One thing was certain, she thought, was that they were after Gideon, not her or Tobias. Just Gideon.

She had arrived at an abandon warehouse a couple of hours ago, where they had tied her to a metal rod in the corner of the room.

Two of the soldiers, dressed in combat clothing and a bulletproof vest, stride to her and she shrunk back in terror.

"We need a picture." He smirked, in accented English. "To show your husband we are serious."

He nodded to his friend and who tilted his head with a sinister smile. His gloved hand reach over to grab her hair, yanking her head up as he backhand her across the face. Rory wailed in agony, tears falling down her face profusely. Another slap resonated in the warehouse as she flew the other way- this time she spat out blood.

He grabbed the back of her head again, pulled it up and rammed her head against the metal pole. Rory left out a painful cry, begging for someone to come and save her, anyone. She was so frighten out of her mind, that her brain was unable to process anything.

"He should get the message now."

After taking several pictures of her bruised and battered face, they leave her curled in a ball in the corner. Rory trembled violently, bile raising out of her mouth and onto the cold concrete floor.

~*~

Sebastian pinpointed Rory's location the moment he set up the network. She was a couple of miles out of Athens and had been situated in the position for a while. Gideon, Tobias and their men had driven out to the location and were currently set up to raid the warehouse.

They had received a list of demands for the exchange of Rory and, one in particular had helped them pieced together who was behind the attack. Emir Yilmaz, the leader of a Turkish extremist group who had came to Gideon for goods prior to his exile into Europe. He was rejected, unable to meet the criteria, and clearly has not taken it lightly.

"I'm not giving him anything nor am I waiting another day to get my wife back." Gideon seethed, strapping on a bulletproof vest.

He was storming that warehouse now and putting the person who dared lay a hand on his wife six feet under.

Those pictures of her they sent him, he was going to kill them all.

They have enough men to have the upper hand in this fight. He had one surround all exits and entrance, snippers camouflaged in bushes and upon the roof ready to descend at his command.

Tobias led the way, kicking down the rusted metal doors and opened fire, killing the guards that were too slow and too stunned to hide for cover. Gideon ran forward, darting through the open space while the snipers provided cover, taking down and disarming anyone who came his way.

He spots her mane of curls hunched in the corner, shivering, instantly.

"Rory-"

The air was knocked out of his lungs as Gideon was sent flying. The soldier, as big and built as him, appeared from nowhere, pulling out a thick blade. The metal cuts his forearm, slicing open the flesh and blood pours out. Gideon gritted his teeth, biting back the pain. Another slash hits him on the side, cutting open his clothing and slicing through the flesh.

He was in pain, though too focused on getting to Rory to even care he was bleeding out.

He used his legs to trip the soldier causing him to fall and in an instant, he wrestled him. Thighs wrapped his neck, forcing the air to leave his system. The soldier was red in the face, eyes bulging as if he was ready to burst.

"You don't bring a knife to a gun fight." Gideon growled. One hand holding down the soldier's wrist and the other fishing a handgun from his back pocket.

Gideon shoved the head of the gun into his opened mouth, pulling the trigger. His body goes slacked and the blades hits the concrete with a thump. With one final breath, the soldier groaned - the life leaving his eyes.

Rory's whimper made him release the lifeless body of the soldier. He crawled to her, grabbing the blade to the cut her bounds free. He grimaced at the burns on her wrist and ankles but what pushed him over the edge was he bussed lips, swollen cheeks, and her teary and frightful eyes.

He pulled her into his chest and she cried ugly and painful sobs. He was going to make them all pay, including Emir Yilmaz, in exchange for her tears.

"If they're still alive bring them to me." He spoken into the microphone.

"Yes, boss." Came the replied.

"You're bleeding." Rory said with shaky voice. Her gaze fell on the blood of pool he was producing, the one they were sitting in.

"I'm fine." He murmured, against her hair breathing in her scent to calm his restless heart.

He wasn't scared, no, he knew nothing could keep him away from her. All he felt in the moment was red - blinding rage that burned his veins. The moment those pictures were sent to him of her battered form, he was murderous, throwing a massive fit that ruined Tobias' meeting room.

No one stopped, too afraid that his raging tornado will swallow them too.

The remaining men were hanging on by a thread, barely alive as they bleed out. There was at least five of them who he had striped bare.

Gideon settled Rory on a chair, facing away from it all as he knelt in front of her. His knuckles gently stroke her jaw and along her lips. He wanted to kiss her so bad but refrain from doing so to not hurt her further.

Rory observed his features, noticing how pale, in contrast to his Colombian heritage. He was still bleeding badly yet showed no falter.

"I'll kill them." He promised, staring straight into her eyes. "I'll kill anyone who lays a hand on you."

😭