Page 185 of Sins of Innocence

I unbuckle quickly and reach for her wrist. Her pulse is steady. She's breathing.

Not dead.

Then she makes a sound. Her head shifts. Her hair falls away and her eyes flutter open.

And I start breathing again.

Cupping her face, my thumbs lock rigidly along her jawline, my fingers grip the base of her skull to hold her head in place. "Don't move, baby girl. Does anything hurt?"

"I can't breathe," she chokes out, her face flushing a dangerous crimson as her body weight suffocates her diaphragm. "The belt—"

"I know. I'll get you out of it as soon as I can, but don't shake your head. Answer me with words only."

"Oh…kay…"

"Good girl. Now, wiggle your toes for me."

The toes revealed by her sandal on her right foot move.

"Now, the other."

Her left toes move.

"Sensation is intact," I tell her the good news, my forearms locking into iron pillars to keep her head perfectly aligned with her shoulders. "But you are dangling. If I hit the buckle, your weight drops and exacerbate damage we don't know about. You stay exactly where you are until I have more hands."

Puff. Puff. Puff.

The rhythm is unmistakable to a trained ear. Subsonic, suppressed rounds striking the reinforced underbelly of our vehicle. Destroying any thought that this was an accident and not a hit.

There's a clang against the A-Pillar followed almost immediately by a duller, heavy crack against the passenger window. There's a keyhole mark, but the polycarbonate layer holds and the ricochet does not shatter the window.

Áine shrieks, flinching violently.

"Hold still," I admonish her, my muscles absorbing her movement as I keep her neck locked in place. "I have you. Look at me. Our men are out there. They've got our backs."

Proving my words, Dagda's muffled voice sounds from outside. "Perimeter suppressed! We’ve got two shooters advancing from the flatbed and a third car."

Fuck. Suppressed. Not secured.

And we've got a team of three cars with an unknown number of combatants.

"Dagda, get down here!" I order. "Noah, through the windshield! Áine's experiencing suspension trauma and her airway is closing."

The rear passenger door is violently wrenched open, and Dagda drops into the cabin. Noah nimbly climbs up the undercarriage and onto the SUV so he can lean down and strike the edge of the windshield.

Made of a specialized laminated ballistic glass that is designed to stay in one piece but fracture into a dense spiderweb upon a massive impact, the windshield is the primary exit if the doors are pinned. Or a necessary entrance point to help extract a passenger safely after a collision.

Noah's third heavy, rhythmic strike with a compact halligan bar punches a hole into the windshield. Grabbing the edge with the tool, he pulls back and rolls the spider cracked windshield away like a sardine can.

He doesn't waste any time crawling in prone over the dashboard.

"I have C-spine," I bark, my hold on Áine strong and steady. "Dagda, take her hips. Noah, trap her shoulders. On my count, lift her an inch to take the tension off the webbing. One. Two. Three. Lift."

My men groan, their strength fighting gravity in the tight space. They hoist her torso upward, slackening the seatbelt.

"Cut the shoulder harness first," I command, my gaze locked with my wife's, willing her to trust us. To trust me. "Three. Two. One. Cut."

Snap. The heavy nylon parts.