Chapter 94: The Curtain Has Fallen
NIKO’S POV
I floor the gas pedal again, the engine roaring in protest as the distance between us closes by a few yards.
As the wind howls violently against the heavy metal frame of my SUV, a dark, unsettling thought crosses my mind: Is the puppy even still alive in the back of that car?
I sincerely hope he is.
Against my better judgment, I’ve actually grown a bit fond of Adrien over these past few months. I find him surprisingly fun to have around.
He isn’t like the other weaklings who end up in Orion’s orbit—the ones who cry, beg, and break into hollow shells within forty-eight hours.
Adrien has this absurd, stubborn little spark that refuses to die, no matter how much horror and trauma Orion throws at him. He glares at men four times his size, speaks with a sharp tongue, and carries himself like a prince trapped in a pigsty.
I even found it hilarious when the kid tried to convince Alexis that staying with me was the literal definition of willingly accepting Stockholm syndrome.
Alexis had looked so deeply, painfully uncomfortable while Adrien carefully explained the psychological stages of loving a murderer.
Meanwhile, I just walked in front of them while thoroughly enjoying every single second of the show. I even planned to offer Adrien an apple afterward just for the effort.
The puppy has spirit. It would be a damn shame if he died in the trunk of a dark sedan like collateral damage.
"Come on, move your pathetic ass," I growl under my breath, watching the red glow of the sedan’s taillights ahead through the swirling mist.
Every single time I get close to the back bumper of the vehicle, the driver hits the gas, accelerating violently as if intentionally teasing me.
They are taking absurd, erratic lines along the narrow road, swerving wildly across the twin yellow lines to block my path whenever I try to pull up alongside them to force a turn.
It is pure, deliberate ragebaiting.
The driver knows what they’re doing. They’re tapping their brakes just enough to make me hesitate, then launching forward, throwing sparks as their undercarriage scrapes against the uneven pavement.
They think they’re playing a video game. They think this is a fun little getaway.
"Keep playing, sweetheart," I mutter, my grip tightening on the custom leather steering wheel until my knuckles pop like small firecrackers. "Keep driving like a brainless stunt driver."
I make a silent, binding promise to myself right then and there: the moment this chase ends—and it will end—I am going to cut off the head of that driver with my axe.
Not for the kidnapping. Not for offending Orion. Just for the sheer, unbelievable disrespect of trying to outdrive me on a narrow ridge road.
The road bends sharply near the approach to the old abandoned quarry. The river drops off sharply to the left—a steep, jagged cliff of black rock that leads straight down into freezing, rushing water.
The sedan takes the curve too wide, its rear tires sliding violently against the loose gravel at the edge of the asphalt.
This is my window.
The driver realizes their mistake a fraction of a second too late and tries to correct the steering, but the sudden loss of momentum costs them their speed.
They can’t move any faster. They’ve reached the physical limit of the vehicle’s traction on these back roads.
"Got you," I whisper.
I don’t hesitate. I don’t give them time to stabilize the wheel. I press my foot firmly onto the accelerator, slamming the gas pedal all the way to the floorboards.
My heavy, armored SUV surges forward like a rabid animal unleashed from a cage. The remaining distance vanishes in less than a breath.
The front reinforced steel grill of my vehicle hits the rear driver-side bumper of the sedan with a deafening, metallic crunch that echoes across the dark trees like a cannon shot.
The impact is brutal.
The sedan’s backend lifts completely off the pavement. The driver tries to steer into the hit, but at eighty miles an hour on loose dirt, physics takes over entirely. The sedan spins out of control, its tires screeching in a high-pitched, agonizing scream of burning rubber as it clips the raised dirt embankment at the edge of the road.
The dark car flips.
It rolls once, twice, three times—metal crumpling like paper, glass shattering in a brilliant, glittering shower of diamonds that reflects in the harsh beam of my headlights.
It rolls across the opposite lane, sparks flying wildly into the night air as the roof collapses inward with a sickening crunch, before finally settling at the very edge of the road, upside down as a smoking, twisted wreck.
My SUV grinds to a heavy halt a few dozen yards back, the brakes pulsing under my foot as I stop. I shift the transmission into park, my heart beating with a steady, electric hum of adrenaline.
I look at the crumpled, inverted vehicle resting near the dark drop-off, a cold, uncomfortable knot forming in my stomach.
I hope to hell and back that the puppy hasn’t broken his neck in that crash.
If Adrien is dead inside that mangled piece of metal, Orion won’t just be angry—he will kill me. He will skip the yelling, skip the theatrics, rip my spine out through my throat, and use it as a decorative cane for his walking tours.
I reach down to the side of my seat, unholstering my heavy 9mm handgun, and pop the SUV door open.
The night air is freezing, smelling strongly of burnt rubber, spilled high-octane gasoline, and superheated metal. I step out into the quiet, my steel-toed dress shoes hitting the cold pavement with deliberate, quiet clicks.
Isn’t it common sense to always dress to kill?
Silence has settled over the isolated road, broken only by the hiss of steam rising from the crushed radiator of the wrecked sedan and the crackle of dry grass catching fire nearby.
I raise my gun, holding it with both hands, keeping my movements smooth and cautious as I begin to close the distance toward the crash site.
The sedan is completely ruined. The frame is twisted like an old tin can, the wheels still spinning slowly in the air. I can hear the faint, wet sound of groaning from inside—the driver or a passenger still clinging to life beneath the crushed roof.
I reach out toward the shattered driver’s side door, intending to pull the frame back and peer through the broken glass to check for signs of life—and to see if Adrien is lying unconscious in the back seat.
Suddenly, every single hair on the back of my neck stands straight up.
My instincts—honed by years of surviving back-alley ambushes, high-stakes executions, and Orion’s chaotic, unannounced survival tests—scream at me with a sudden, deafening intensity.
DANGER.
I don’t think. I don’t analyze. I react.
I drop my body low to the ground, diving sideways over the dirt embankment and crouching flat against the mud, covering the back of my neck with both arms and pulling my head down.
BOOM!
A blinding, blinding flash of brilliant orange light tears through the darkness as the wrecked sedan explodes in a violent, catastrophic fireball.
The shockwave hits my back like a solid wall of flying iron, knocking the air completely out of my lungs with a heavy force.
The force of the blast rattles my teeth in my skull, the roaring heat scorching the air above me and singeing the ends of my hair in a fraction of a second.
Twisted metal shards, jagged pieces of glass, and burning fragments of the interior rain down across the road, hitting the asphalt and my body with a sharp, metallic clatter.
A heavy wheel assembly flies right over my head, crashing into the trees behind me with a thunderous snap of breaking wood.
The scene is eerily familiar.
It is a near-identical mirror of the explosion that ruined the original engagement party months ago—a clean, calculated, instantaneous detonation triggered remotely or by a deadline fuse, meant to destroy all evidence, kill everyone inside, and leave nothing but ashes and charred bone behind.
I push myself up slowly into a low crouch, coughing against the thick, acrid black smoke rising from the burning wreckage.
The searing heat from the raging fire washes over my face, illuminating the dark road and the surrounding forest in a flickering, violent red hue.
I stare at the roaring inferno, my eyes narrowing into tight slits as the reality of the situation sinks in.
There was no rescue. There was no hostage negotiation. Whoever organized this didn’t want Adrien dead—they wanted him for leverage, or they used a burner car filled with explosives to throw us off the real scent while Leon slipped away in another direction entirely.
I wipe a smear of black soot and dirt off my cheek, staring at the melting metal frame of the car.
"Well..." I mutter aloud to the burning night, brushing a glowing shard of hot glass off my leather jacket, my voice completely flat and devoid of humor. "...Orion is definitely going to murder me."
Shit.