Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Two
Markus paced Aht’s bedroom, his boots thudding against the polished floor. Each step was sharp, anxious, a rhythm born from nerves fraying tighter with every unanswered call.
His phone had rung off against his hand more tis than he could count, and each vibration that went unanswered tightened a coil in his chest.
He had expected the SOS. He knew Aht like he knew the rise and fall of the sun. If anything had gone wrong, the alert would have scread across his devices. But there was nothing. Nothing except silence.
He checked his schedule again. Every eting had been cleared, every call deferred, every appointnt canceled to make ti to see Asli.
Markus had argued, once. Quietly. Carefully. He’d offered to co along, to wait outside, to be close enough if things turned ugly. Aht had shut it down with a look that ended discussions. This was his ss. His words to speak. His to fix.
So Markus stayed behind and waited. And waited. And waited... till he couldn’t wait anymore.
Now the hours had stretched thin and his calls still went unanswered. Nothing searched was useful. And when he’d finally reached his contact inside her Villa, the answer had co back clean and wrong all at once.
She was ho. That much he had confird. And yet, Aht wasn’t here. Not answering. Not appearing. Not even leaving a trace.
A cold dread settled in his stomach, crawling up his ribs. He hated fear. Hated feeling out of control. And yet, he could not force the thought from his mind: What if she...?
No. He shook his head, fingers tugging at his coat. Aht was powerful. Unstoppable in ways most n could never be. He had survived death before, laughed at bullets, and danced through fire.
And... but then... this was Asli.
He froze mid-step, imagining the two of them with their history, the hatred, the fire, and underneath it, the sothing else that nobody in the world understood. The sothing that had made even the ruthless Aht yield, just slightly, just enough to be vulnerable.
Markus ran a hand through his hair and muttered under his breath. "No one touches him... no one. Not even her... not anyone."
And yet, the silence mocked him.
He could only pace. Could only listen for the faintest sound of a door opening, a gunshot, a single breath from the hall that might tell him he was too late or just in ti.
Markus stopped pacing.
The movent had beco useless anyway too much thought trapped in too small a space. He walked towards the door and stopped, phone hanging loose in his hand, the screen dark now from too many unanswered calls. Silence pressed against his ears, thick and wrong. Before he knew it, he was inside his car and driving away from their Villa.
The warehouse pulled at him first.
That was where she had asked Aht to et her. Not anywhere strange or unfamiliar. Not even on a neutral ground.
Her warehouse. She wanted sowhere private. Sowhere she would control. A place where she had killed about a thousand or more. A place where her subordinates feared when she called them but this was Aht. He wasn’t her subordinate. Her warehouse was a place where mistakes didn’t leave witnesses.
His jaw tightened at the thought of it... the thought of Aht lying cold on the floor and in the dark.
Where was Aht?
If sothing had gone wrong, this was where it could have happened.
Markus was already moving before the thought finished forming. As he stepped inside, the place seed to expand around him, the space stretching wider and higher than he rembered, as if the walls had quietly pulled away.
The warehouse had been huge, but tonight it felt endless. He had been here before and had walked these floors when gunfire still rang in the air. Back then, noise had filled every corner.
Now, there was nothing.
No voices. No footsteps. Not even the distant hum of machinery. The silence pressed in on him until he could hear his own breathing too clearly, and could feel his heartbeat thudding in his ears. The vastness swallowed sound whole, turning each step he took into sothing small and fragile.
Markus slowed despite himself, listening hard, waiting for anything; a scrape, a groan, a curse... anything to break the stillness.
Yet, nothing answered him.
He didn’t slow as he continued to push inside, and as he got closer to the bigger side of the warehouse, the echo of his steps was swallowed almost imdiately by the cavernous space.
"Aht," he called, once, then louder, his voice cracking against the concrete.
He moved fast, scanning corners, cutting through shadows, checking behind crates, along the walls, anywhere a body could have fallen and been left. His hand hovered near his gun, not in caution, but reflex. Asli by now could’ve told her people.
If any of Asli’s n caught him here, uninvited, unannounced, it wouldn’t matter. Let them drag him out. Let them aim their weapons. He would deal with that later, if there was a later.
He crossed the floor again, his heart hamring now, eyes catching on scuffed concrete, on a dark sar he refused to look at too closely. His breath ca unevenly as he reached the far end, then turned back, frustration rising sharp and vicious in his chest.
Nothing.
No Aht. No answer. No sign of a man who should have been impossible to erase so completely.
The emptiness hit harder than any bullet could have.
What if he wasn’t here?
The thought lodged deep, cold, and terrifying. Marus stood there for a second longer, forcing himself to breathe, forcing the panic down where it belonged. The warehouse had given him nothing. Not even a body.
Then his mind dragged him the other way.
Aht’s apartnt.
If he had left the warehouse alive, if he had walked away angry or wounded in ways that didn’t bleed, that was where he would have gone.
That was where Aht went when he needed walls instead of people. When he needed silence he could trust. Markus could already picture it too clearly: the curtains still drawn, a glass untouched on the counter, the kind of quiet that ant a man had never made it ho.
He scrubbed a hand down his face, breath coming shallow now. He didn’t like not knowing. He didn’t like guessing wrong. And he hated that this: this uncertainty, had Asli’s shape all over it.
Aht was powerful. Careful. Surrounded by n who would burn a city down if he didn’t return their calls. But power didn’t an invincible. Not where Asli was concerned. Not when love had already put a blade between his ribs.
How would he explain this to anyone? That he fell in love and had the woman end him?
Markus turned slowly, eyes lifting to the door, then to the clock, then back to his phone.
Warehouse or apartnt.
For the first ti in longer than he cared to admit, he didn’t know which choice would lead him closer to Aht and which one would make him too late.
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