Chapter One – The Wrong Road
The storm rolled in like a predator.
Dark clouds swelled across the sky, swallowing the last hints of daylight until the highway ahead became a blur of shadows and streaking rain. Wipers thrashed furiously, but the downpour was relentless, hammering the Maybach's roof with a rhythm that set Adrian Cole's nerves on edge.
He leaned back against the leather seat, his tablet dimmed to black on his lap. Numbers and contracts no longer held his attention. His thoughts had drifted—unwelcome, but persistent—back to the dinner table earlier that evening, to his cousin's voice laced with poison.
"Even kings fall, Adrian. Don't forget that."
Victor's smile had been smug, his glass of wine lifted as if in a toast to Adrian's downfall. Adrian had dismissed it at the time. Cousins could be bitter. Envy was natural when one man carried an empire in his hands. But still… something about the gleam in Victor's eyes clung to him now like a shadow.
He rubbed a hand over his jaw, gaze flicking toward the windshield where the headlights smeared against the rain-slick asphalt. Miles away from home. Miles away from his city, his empire, his control. He hated leaving Cole City. He hated feeling out of place, like a lion forced into another man's territory.
A glance at the driver broke his brooding.
Mark had been his chauffeur for nearly three years—steady, reliable, nearly invisible most days. Adrian valued men like him: efficient, discreet, predictable. But tonight… something was different.
Mark's grip on the wheel was too tight, his knuckles straining white beneath the dashboard lights. His shoulders stiffened every few seconds, as though the leather seat beneath him had sprouted thorns. His jaw flexed with each swallow, and every so often, his eyes darted to the rearview mirror. Not the casual, professional glance of a driver checking the road behind, but furtive. Uneasy. Almost… haunted.
Adrian's gaze sharpened. "Eyes on the road, Mark."
"Yes, sir," Mark rasped. But his voice cracked on the second word, strained and heavy like it had been dragged from somewhere deep in his chest.
Adrian narrowed his eyes. Loyal, quiet, efficient—yes. Nervous? Never. Something was wrong.
He leaned forward slightly, tension stirring in his gut. "Is there a problem?"
Mark's throat bobbed. His lips parted, as though a confession sat trembling on the tip of his tongue. But then his jaw locked, and he shook his head, fixing his eyes on the blur of highway ahead.
"...No, sir."
Liar.
Adrian felt it in his bones, the way instinct prickled along the back of his neck. His mind shifted from Victor's threat to the man in front of him. What was Mark hiding? Why tonight?
The car surged faster, slicing through sheets of rain. Adrian's fingers curled against his thigh, muscles tightening with each passing second. Something wasn't right. He could feel it—sharp, electric, dangerous.
And then—
Headlights.
Blinding. A truck, massive and barreling into their lane. The horn screamed through the storm, tires screeching as the driver fought the slick asphalt.
Adrian's breath caught. His instincts roared. "Mark!"
Mark yanked the wheel too late.
The impact was cataclysmic. Metal shrieked as the Maybach spun, a thousand shards of glass exploding like stars around them. Adrian's chest slammed against the seatbelt, pain detonating through his ribs. His head snapped sideways, vision fracturing into bursts of light and darkness.
The world turned upside down, then sideways, then—nothing made sense anymore.
Through the chaos, his gaze found the mirror. With blurry sight he saw glass shards,car decors scattered around and some people rushing over with panic on their faces
The faint sound of sirens getting closer and a sharp ringing sound that's drawing him into the darkness,with his last strength he looked at Mark's face,seeing the man's face he wasn't sure he survived it
Adrian's final thought, jagged and sharp, wasn't of fear. It was of betrayal.
Then blackness swallowed him whole.
---
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound dragged him back from oblivion.
Adrian's eyelids fluttered. Light stabbed at him, too bright, too sterile. The air smelled of antiseptic, sharp and suffocating. He was lying flat, every nerve in his body aching, a web of pain stretching through his chest and limbs.
Machines hummed at his side. Monitors blinked. He barely registered them. The world was a haze, slipping and shifting, his mind refusing to anchor itself.
And then—
"Hey… you're awake."
The voice cut through the fog like sunlight through storm clouds.
He turned his head, slowly, painfully. His vision swam before sharpening on the figure sitting beside his bed.
A woman.
Her hair fell loose around her face, dark strands spilling over her shoulders. Her features were soft yet steady, framed by worried eyes that studied him with a mixture of relief and hesitation. Her hazel eyes conveying worry
But her presence anchored him.
Adrian stared, breathing shallowly, memorizing the unfamiliar face that somehow made the chaos bearable.
"You're safe now," she whispered, as if the words alone could hold back the storm inside him.
His lips parted, but no sound came. He wanted to ask who she was, why she was here, what had happened—but the weight of exhaustion dragged him under again.
Her voice followed him into the darkness, the only thing he carried with him.