The Divorced Military Queen Awakens (by Sadie Baxter) novel Chapter 679

Chapter 679 The Standoff

Chapter 679 The Standoff

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Dawn’s lashes trembled, tears clinging there. “Really?” she whispered.

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Quinn nodded. “I promise,” she said, cupping the tiny face and kissing the center of her daughter’s brow.

With a shuddering breath, Dawn squared her small shoulders. “Okay. I trust you, Mom!”

Quinn’s smile bloomed, weary yet radiant. She had never expected that her daughter’s simple faith could surge through her body like new blood, lending strength to muscles still half numb.

No matter what happened next, she would guard the child. She would also honor the promise she had once whispered to Julius. She would stay alive and find her way back to him.

Angela and Megan hustled Dawn into a narrow storage alcove, the door closing with a soft click that left Quinn alone in the dim hallway.

Quinn wheeled herself into the open, the pistol steady in her lap. She watched as armed men kicked the door off its hinges and poured inside like a black tide.

Without hesitation, she lifted the weapon, muzzle snapping toward Edmund.

Of all the invaders, his was the one face she recognized. Angela had shown her the photograph only hours ago.

Edmund was here for her blood. This much she knew.

What she still could not fathom was why. Does he fear I would complicate his plans as Dawn’s mother?

One of the officers barked, “You’re surrounded. Put the gun down, now!”

Quinn’s voice stayed level, the pistol never wavering. “I have committed no crime,” she announced. “Through the drones, you all heard me loud and clear. I’m a coma patient who has barely woken, yet Edmund Arnold insists on killing me. And, Mr. Arnold, if you order these men to shoot, or if you fire yourself, I guarantee the bullet in my chamber will find your skull. Do you truly wish to die with me?”

The rasp in her throat and the ice in her stare stirred an unexpected ripple of fear inside Edmund.

He felt, with chilling certainty, that the instant he moved, she would squeeze the trigger.

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“You, a half–dead invalid, think you can hit me?” Arnold sneered, words barely off his tongue, when a sharp report cracked the air. The slug whistled past and shaved a bloody line across his cheek.

Quinn’s words rang out like a bell, firm and clear. “I am Quinn Bridger, wife of Julius Whitethorn, head of the Whitethorn family in Jexburgh. If anyone here chooses to protect me, my husband will reward you richly the moment his men arrive. But if I die tonight, he will hunt those responsible without mercy. Decide. Do you prefer money, or war with the Whitethorns?”

Her declaration seemed to boom off the cracked plaster walls, startling even the dust motes in the stagnant air.

Edmund’s face twisted in disbelief. “Impossible. Mr. Whitethorn’s wife has been dead for five years!”

“Missing, not dead,” Quinn corrected him. “If you doubt me, search the Internet. Even events from years ago are easy to find.”

The officers and hired guns exchanged long looks. She could see their trigger fingers easing away. Edmund’s composure began to crumble.

“You fools actually believe her? How could anyone from the Whitethorn dynasty be hiding in Kandria? She just attacked me. Killing her is self–defense!” He lifted his gun and fired at Quinn.

He was certain a bedridden convalescent who had just woken up could never evade the shot.

But the instant his finger squeezed the trigger, another report split the room. A sniper’s round punched through his wrist, and his pistol clattered uselessly to the floor as he howled in pain.

When did that woman pull the trigger?

Edmund staggered back, clutching his bleeding wrist. A feral snarl tore free. “Kill her! The one who puts her down gets one million!”

The promise crashed into silence. Not a soul answered.

Only then did Edmund realize the room had fallen eerily still.

He lifted his head. Strangers now crowded the doorway, muzzles raised in flawless alignment at him and his crew.

A man in a razor–pressed suit strode through the line of guns and halted beside the woman in the wheelchair, studying her as if his eyes no longer trusted him.

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