Your Gold Digger is Actually A True Heiress by Vera Fiore

Chapter 185 No one could have anticipated how suddenly disaster would strike As they approached the restaurant entrance, two men burst from the crowd without warning Both wore black masks and baseball caps pulled low over their faces.

One was tall with muscular, tattooed arms visible beneath his white t-shirt The other was shorter and less imposing, but no less dangerous, Thalia and Alana reacted with instinctive precision, sidestepping the initial assault.

"Get them out of here!" Alana shouted, dodging the taller man's blade and landing a powerful counterpunch. Tve got this-go now!" Lucy and Katie stood frozen, their faces drained of color.

For Lucy, the scene triggered a visceral flashback to her tat Sinclair & Klein-when a disturbed client had brandished a knife and her colleague had used her as a human shield. The memory paralyzed her with terror. "Run!" Thalia grabbed both women by their arms, her voice cutting through Lucy's panic.

The physical contact snapped Lucy back to reality, and she began moving on instinct.

Katie, experiencing this level of danger for the first time, found her legs uncooperative. The high heels she'd worn to work betrayed her after just a few steps-her ankle twisted sharply, sending her sprawling to the pavement.

Alana, now fully engaged with her attacker, made a split-second assessment: these weren't ordinary thugs, but professionally trained operatives.

This wasn't her first encounter with mercenaries, however. She knew their techniques-and their weaknesses. The shorter assailant, seeing Katie fall, seized his opportunity. Breaking away from his companion, he sprinted toward the vulnerable women.

"Can you stand?" Thalia crouched beside Katie, urgency edging her voice.

"My ankle-" Katie gasped, her face contorted with pain as Thalia helped her upright.

She managed to put weight on one foot, the injured one barely touching the ground. Walking was clearly impossible, let alone running.

The shorter attacker closed the distance with alarming speed.

09:44 Your Gold Digger is Actually A True Heiress 9.5% His knife glinted in the fading sunlight as he lunged directly at Katie.

Without hesitation. Thalia shoved Katie clear of the attack and engaged the man herself.

Katie tumbled onto a nearby strip of landscaped grass, watching in stunned horror as her boss executed a series of defensive maneuvers against the attacker.

Through her pain and fear, a singular thought registered: Thalia knows how to fight? Lucy rushed to Katie's side. "We need to move-now!" "I can't," Katie's face had gone ghostly pale, cold sweat beading on her forehead.

"Lean on me," Lucy insisted, already dialing emergency services on her phone.

Others on the street were doing the same, voices rising in alarm around them.

Alana dispatched her opponent with brutal efficiency, immediately assessing the new threat to Thalia. With a powerful kick that sent the muscular man reeling, she sprinted toward her employer.

Thalia was holding her own admirably, but her opponent's training was evident in every movement. After several exchanges, it becclear that she was facing someone whose skills far exceeded those of an ordinary assailant.

Her defenses were beginning to falter.

The attacker recognized his advantage, driving his blade toward Thalia's heart in what would have been a killing blow.

A blur of movement interrupted the attack-Alana's hands locked around the man's wrist with crushing force, drawing a grimace of pain from his partially concealed face.

The intervention cjust in time. From that angle and distance, Thalia might have avoided a direct hit to her heart, but the blade would have found flesh elsewhere. Any wound would have drastically compromised her ability to defend herself, making a second, fatal strike almost inevitable.

With practiced efficiency, Alana subdued the attacker and appropriated his weapon, pressing the blade against his throat.

Only the public setting prevented her from ending the threat permanently.

The muscular man, assessing his deteriorating situation, turned to flee.

"Amateur," Alana muttered with cold derision.

With clinical detachment, she retrieved a medical ampoule from her pocket and broke the seal. In one flui motion, she coated the knife blade with its contents.

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The weapon left her hand in a blur, rotating through the air with surgical precision before embedding itself in the fleeing man's calf. To his credit, the mercenary barely flinched, continuing his escape attempt without breaking stride.

He managed only a few more steps before collapsing mid-stride, his body suddenly unresponsive, "Fast-acting sedative," Alana remarked to no one in particular. "Even professionals can't fight their own nervous system."

The shorter attacker, sensing an opening, attempted to break freen Alana responded with a controlled application of pressure that rendered him unconscious within seconds.

"Boss," Alana turned her attention back to Thalia, genuine concemm breaking through her professional En.

composure. "Are you hurt?" "I'm fine," Thalia assured her, exhaling shakily.

In that moment, Thalia experienced something primal-an instinctive sense of danger that sent ice through her veins.

It manifested as a full-body sensation, raising goosebumps across her skin before her conscious mind could process the threat.

Then she saw it-the unmistakable outline of a pistol emerging from behind a statue across the street.

The crack of the gunshot split the air.

"Look out!" Thalia shouted, lunging toward Lucy.

The impact of the bullet brought an odd moment of numbness.

Then pain-white-hot and overwhelming-radiated outward from the wound, threatening to collapse her legs beneath her.

"Boss!" Alana's voice cut through the haze as she moved to catch Thalia's faltering form.

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