Chapter 334: Don’t Look at Them

Lucas took the sedan downward.

He needed out of the building first. Then out of this part of the city. Maybe farther than that. The more he turned the night over in his head, the less clean it looked. If this really traced back to Durnik, then he had underestimated the bastard. Public gunfire. Multiple teams. No care for witnesses. That was not a warning. That was someone spending real money to finish a job.

The stolen sedan rattled down the ramp with a rough engine note and a broken window still leaking cold air. Somewhere behind him the alarm had finally died, leaving only the sound of tires on concrete and Rechelle’s uneven breathing in the passenger seat.

He kept one eye on the mirrors and both hands ready on the wheel.

---

Below and above him, the hunters were still working.

The black jeep and the second vehicle moved slowly between levels, engines low, lights cutting across parked cars in careful sweeps. The men inside were no longer rushing. Rushing had already cost them the street chase. Now they searched like people who had been embarrassed and did not intend to be embarrassed twice.

Each floor got the same treatment.

Stop.

Doors open.

Boots on concrete.

Guns up.

They checked between vehicles, under low chassis, behind concrete pillars, anywhere a man might drag a half-drunk woman and try to disappear. One of them kicked a service door open hard enough to bang it against the wall. Another swept the stairwell with a flashlight and a raised pistol. Every empty corner made the mood uglier.

"Nothing."

"Next level."

They climbed.

Then the sound reached them.

A car screaming somewhere above ~ that high, hysterical alarm bouncing through the structure, impossible to ignore in the concrete quiet.

All of them looked up at once.

For a second nobody spoke.

Then the hope hit them, mean and eager.

If that noise belonged to the target, the night could still be salvaged. Rechelle. The man protecting her. Maybe both still trapped up there with a dead car and nowhere left to run.

"Move."

The SUV surged up the ramps harder than before, engine echoing through the levels. The men inside checked their weapons again without needing to be told. One of them smiled without humor.

"Please be them."

"If it is, we end it here."

They took the turns fast enough that the tires complained, climbing toward the noise like it was a dinner bell.

---

When they reached the floor, the first thing they saw was the Buggati.

It sat ugly and defeated on the concrete, rear rim ruined, body marked from the chase, still expensive even in failure. The passenger door hung open like someone had left in a hurry.

The SUV stopped hard.

Doors flew open.

The men spilled out with guns already up, spreading in a low arc toward the abandoned Bugatti. No jokes now. No wasted movement. The open door made every finger tighten on a trigger.

They closed in step by step.

One angled left. One right. One stayed center with a clear line into the cabin. A fourth watched the rest of the floor in case it was bait.

"Anyone moves, light them up."

They reached the open passenger side and held.

The seats were empty.

No Rechelle.

No man.

Only the dead machine and the quiet that followed the alarm.

They checked it twice anyway.

Front seats. Back footwell. Even the narrow space behind the seats like someone might have been stupid enough to fold themselves into it. Nothing. No Rechelle. No man. Only the open passenger door, the ruined rear rim, and the sour feeling that the night was slipping again.

One of them straightened up, jaw tight.

"They’re close. Has to be. Car didn’t walk here by itself."

That was enough.

They loaded back into the SUV fast, doors slamming, weapons still in hand. The plan was simple: keep sweeping upward, force every floor, flush them out before the building gave them a clean exit. The driver shoved it into gear and started rolling.

That was when the black sedan passed them.

---

Lucas saw the SUV a half-second before the gap closed.

Same shape. Same ugly presence. The kind of vehicle that had been trying to kill them all night. His hands tightened on the wheel, but he did not stamp the throttle. Not yet. In a parking structure, sudden speed was a confession.

"Rechelle."

She turned toward him, still slow from the alcohol.

"Look out your window," he said quietly. "Not at the car coming. Outside. Buildings. Anything else."

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

He reached over once, brief and firm, and turned her face toward the side glass before she could get curious. Then he set his own eyes forward and kept them there.

The two vehicles drew level.

For a stretch of concrete and yellow light they passed almost close enough to touch. Lucas could feel the weight of attention from the SUV without looking into it. He gave them nothing. No glance. No reaction. Just a man in a plain sedan driving at a normal pace, broken window on his side, eyes on the route ahead.

Inside the SUV, the men went quiet.

Guns lowered a fraction. Heads turned. They stared hard at the passing car, trying to pin the driver and the passenger in the dim light. Something about the pair tugged at them. Familiar in the wrong way. Not clear enough to shout over. Clear enough to sour the stomach.

The sedan slid by.

Lucas held the same steady speed until the SUV’s lights fell out of his mirrors completely. Only then did he breathe once, sharp, and put his foot down.

He forgot, for a full second, that this was not the Bugatti.

The stolen sedan’s engine screamed in protest, rough and strained, as he forced it down the ramp far harder than it wanted to go. The whole frame shook. The broken window roared with wind. Rechelle grabbed the door handle with both hands.

"Lucas~!"

"I know."

He kept the throttle buried anyway, chasing distance before the men behind them finished thinking.

---

In the SUV, nobody spoke at first.

They kept climbing, still half-locked on the empty Bugatti and the idea that Rechelle had to be trapped somewhere above. Then one of them, still watching the ramp behind in his mind, finally said what the rest were already turning over.

"Turn around."

The driver glanced at him.

"That sedan."

"What about it?"

"Something was off. The passenger. The timing. Whole thing felt wrong."

A second man nodded once, reluctant and irritated at the same time.

"I thought the same."

"So did I," another muttered. "Didn’t want to say it."

That settled it.

If it was not them, they could come straight back. Rechelle was still somewhere in this structure unless she planned to grow wings. No clean exit. No miracle route. They could afford one hard check.

"Do it."

The SUV braked, swung, and turned down hard the way it had come, engine rising as they chased the sedan’s fading noise through the ramps.