Chapter 110: Accident

Aaron’s face remained stone-cold, but his jaw tightened. Lotus Automobiles was a massive, clean corporation.

A public raid on his shipping fleet wouldn’t just delay a multi-billion-dollar contract; it would drag his clean name into the mud right when he needed his legal standing pristine for the court.

He knew instantly who was behind it.

Kian didn’t have the power to destroy Lotus Automobiles, but he had enough money and political connections to cause a sudden, chaotic mess that required Aaron’s personal presence to clear up.

Aaron walked up to the open rear window of the car where Isabella sat waiting.

"Isabella," Aaron said, his tone smooth and calm, hiding the sudden edge of fury pulsing beneath his skin. "I need to handle a minor issue at the harbor office. Go ahead with Niko. I’ll be right behind you."

Isabella turned her head toward his voice, her brow furrowing with sudden worry. "What’s wrong? Is it about the case?"

"No," Aaron lied easily, reaching through the window to lightly brush his thumb across her jaw. "Just a small business matter that needs my signature. Niko will keep you safe. You don’t need to be nervous."

A small prick of irritation flared inside Isabella’s chest. She hated how everyone kept treating her like fragile glass.

"I’m not nervous," Isabella said firmly, lifting her chin. "I don’t need you to hold my hand through every second of this, Aaron. Go handle your business. I’ll see you in the courtroom."

Aaron looked at her determined face, a faint, amused smile touching his lips. "As you wish, little bird."

He stepped back, nodding to Niko. "Take the main highway. Keep two trailing cars behind you."

Niko nodded, sliding into the front passenger seat. The heavy armored door clicked shut, and the car smoothly pulled out of the gates, its tires splashing through the deep puddles on the driveway.

...

At the central courthouse downtown, the rain was coming down in thick, blinding sheets.

Kian Carter stood in the doorway of a private conference room on the third floor, staring out at the grey city skyline. He looked sharp in a dark grey suit, but his face was deathly pale, and his grey eyes were dark and bloodshot.

Arthur sat at the long oak table behind him, his fingers furiously tapping on his laptop screen as he reviewed his legal filings.

"You look far too pleased with yourself, Kian," Arthur said quietly without looking up. "What did you do?"

Kian took a slow sip of the cold black coffee in his hand, a faint, eerie smile touching his face. "I gave our friend Kazarov something else to think about this morning. A small headache at the docks."

Arthur froze, his hands hovering over the keyboard. He looked up, his face full of horror. "You poked his business? Kian, are you insane?! I told you who that man is!"

"He thinks he can waltz into my life, take my wife, and treat me like a bug under his shoe," Kian said softly, his voice dropping into a dark, raspy register.

"He isn’t coming to court this morning, Arthur. He’s going to be stuck answering questions from federal harbor inspectors for the next three hours."

Kian turned around, his grey eyes burning with an unhinged, desperate light. "And without him standing over her, breathing down her neck, Isabella will be alone with us. She’ll see that he can’t protect her from everything."

Arthur stared at him, feeling a deep, sick disgust in his stomach. Kian was completely blind to reality. He didn’t see that he was driving them both straight off a cliff.

Miles away, the car carrying Isabella and Niko glided down the rain-slicked highway, heading toward the long bridge that crossed over the industrial river channel.

Inside the car, the steady patter of rain against the heavy glass filled the silence.

Niko turned around in his front seat, smiling warmly at Isabella. "So, Miss Kingston... once this nightmare is over and your eyes are fixed, what’s the first thing you’re going to do?"

Isabella smiled faintly, resting her hands on her stomach. "I want to walk through a beautiful garden. I want to see what colors the roses are this year. And then I’m going to take a long vacation far away from courts and lawyers."

Niko laughed softly. "Hey, some of us lawyers aren’t so bad."

"You’re tolerable, Niko," she teased gently, feeling a brief, rare moment of genuine ease.

"I’ll take it as a compliment," Niko replied, looking back out the windshield as the car began to climb the incline of the concrete bridge.

Behind them, fifty yards back, a massive, rusted commercial car-transporter truck was rumbling along the far right lane.

Inside the high cabin of the heavy truck, a middle-aged man sat clutching the steering wheel with sweaty, trembling hands.

His face was pale, his eyes wide with pure panic. On the dashboard in front of him, a phone lay on speaker, a dark, muffled voice coming through the speaker.

"He’s on the bridge now. Black sedan, license plate ends in seven. Remember the deal, Thomas. Your boy’s bone marrow treatment is paid for the second the job is done. Make it look like a hydroplane accident. Get out and run."

"I... I can’t do this," Thomas sobbed, his knuckles white against the wheel. "There are people in that car!"

"Your son has two weeks to live without that surgery, Thomas. Decide right now whose life matters more."

Thomas choked back a ragged scream, looking down at the small framed photograph of his sick seven-year-old boy taped to his dashboard.

"May God forgive me," Thomas whispered.

Through the blinding curtain of rain, he spotted the sleek black sedan cruising steadily ahead in the middle lane. He slammed his foot down on the gas pedal. The heavy diesel engine roared to life, the massive steel grill of the truck accelerating rapidly through the water.

In the front seat of the car, the driver glanced at his rearview mirror and his eyes widened in sudden horror. "What the hell is this guy doing?!"

Niko turned his head sharply. "Swerve! Get us out of the lane!"

The driver yanked the steering wheel to the left, the tires screeching loudly against the wet concrete, but it was already too late.

The massive steel bumper of the truck slammed directly into the rear side panel of the sedan with a deafening, metallic crunch.

The force of the impact lifted the two-ton car completely off the pavement.

Inside, the world spun into absolute, terrifying chaos. Isabella screamed as the sudden momentum threw her violently against the door.

Glass shattered into millions of tiny sharp pieces, raining over her as the sedan rolled upside down, crashing against the concrete barrier, tumbling over and over like a crushed aluminum can before grinding to a violent, screeching halt upside down in the middle of the highway.

Silence settled over the wrecked bridge, broken only by the sound of pouring rain and the faint hiss of steam escaping from the ruined engine.

Inside the crushed car, thick black smoke began to curl from the dashboard.

Niko lay unconscious in the front, blood pooling over his crushed shoulder. In the backseat, hanging upside down by her seatbelt, Isabella’s small body hung limp, her dress torn, a thin line of deep crimson blood trickling down from her hairline, dripping onto her pale cheek as the quiet, freezing rain poured through the shattered windows.