Chapter 3 - The Man With the Armored Cars
Before I could protest, the stranger lifted me carefully into his arms.
Not roughly.
Not dramatically.
Like he had decided I was not falling while he was there to stop it.
Passengers gasped.
The driver shouted something.
The man ignored all of it.
Rain exploded around us when he forced the rear door open and stepped down onto the curb.
The world outside was blue-gray and blurred with headlights.
I saw the black armored SUV first.
Then the second one behind it.
Then the third.
Security men in dark suits moved at once, opening doors, scanning the street, forming a wall between us and everyone else.
This was not a random stranger.
This was a man people guarded.
He placed me gently inside the SUV, supporting my back with one hand and keeping his coat partly over me to block the rain.
“Focus on breathing,” he said.
I tried.
“Who are you?”
He reached into his coat and handed me a black business card.
The lettering was gold, but the rain and my shaking hands blurred everything except the name.
Lucian Blackwood.
My pulse stopped for one terrible second.
Every American knew that name.
Billionaire industrialist.
Political donor.
The man CEOs feared and senators tried not to offend.
I looked at him.
“Why are you helping me?”
For the first time, something changed in his face.
Not pity.
Recognition.
May you like
“Because Nathan Drake doesn’t get to own you.”
Before I could ask what he meant, my phone vibrated.
