Chapter 117: Suspicion

Over the next hour, they worked on him. They cleaned the deep gashes, the needle finally doing its work as Cyan drifted into a dull, chemical haze. They put six stitches in his forehead and right eye and another eight in his shoulder. His arm was set, a process that made me have to look at the ceiling, and encased in a stark white cast.

“This ruins my entire aesthetic,” Cyan murmured, staring mournfully at the plaster.

“Be grateful you’re alive,” I said, leaning back in the chair I’d pulled up to the bed.

Cyan looked at me, his eyes finally losing their frantic edge. He looked away, his voice dropping into a register I rarely heard from him. “Yeah. I am.”

The medical staff eventually filed out, leaving us in a heavy, ringing silence. The adrenaline was finally leaving my system, leaving behind a cold, hollow reality.

Cyan stared at his cast for a long time. “I really thought I was going to die, Cass. When the car started tumbling… I just thought, this is it. This is how the story ends. I never even got to live long enough to spite my father.”

“I know,” I said. My voice was a rasp. I thought of the way the glass had shattered, the way time had slowed down. “I’m sorry.”

Cyan looked up, frowning. “Why are you apologizing? You didn’t drive into the truck.”

“I don’t know,” I said, running a hand through my hair and wincing when I hit a bruise. “I just feel like I should.”

“What happened to the car?” Cyan asked, trying to shift into a more comfortable position.

“Totaled. There isn’t a single panel that isn’t crushed. They towed it to the police impound.”

Cyan’s eyes sharpened. “And the other vehicle? The trailer?”

“Hit us from the side. Sent us spinning. It didn’t stop, Cyan. It didn’t even slow down.”

Cyan went quiet, his mind, the one he usually hid behind jokes, clearly working through the variables. “You know what I think?”

“I think I know exactly what you think,” I replied.

“I don’t think it was an accident.”

“Neither do I.”

The logic was too clean. “The timing was too perfect,” Cyan said, leaning his head back. “We were on a clear stretch of road. No traffic. No roadblocks. And then suddenly— ”

“The truck came out of nowhere,” I finished. “It didn’t drift. It didn’t swerve to avoid something. It aimed right for the driver’s side. If you hadn’t pulled that sharp turn at the last second, we’d both be in the morgue.”

A knock at the door interrupted us. Two uniformed officers and a man in a sharp suit, an investigator, entered. “Mr. Wolfe? Mr. Devereaux? We need to ask some questions.”

I gestured for them to proceed. I gave them the facts: the route, the speed, the intersection. I kept my voice clinical, but my eyes never left the investigator’s face.

“And you said the truck came from the side?” the investigator asked, flipping a page in his notebook.

“Yes. Deliberately,” I said.

The officer paused. “Deliberately?”

“It didn’t brake,” I said, my voice turning to ice. “There were no skid marks from the truck. It didn’t try to miss us. It stayed on course until impact.”

The investigator sighed, a sound that told me I wasn’t going to like what came next. “We’ve reviewed the scene. Unfortunately, the traffic cameras at that specific intersection and the one prior were down. Malfunctioning for the past forty-eight hours.”

I tensed. I felt the air in the room grow heavy. “Down?”

“A technical glitch, apparently,” the investigator said, though he didn’t sound like he believed it either. “And there were no proper witnesses.”

“What about the truck itself?” Cyan asked. “Surely you have a description.”

“That’s… complicated,” the investigator replied. “The vehicle was recovered three miles away. Abandoned. It had no license plates. No registration in the glove box. The VIN had been filed off the engine block. And the driver is long gone.”

Cyan caught my eye. “Of course they did,” he whispered.

“We’re treating this as a hit-and-run,” the lead officer said, closing his notebook. “But without footage or a suspect, it will be difficult to make an arrest.”

“I want a full forensic analysis,” I said, standing up. My body protested, but I didn’t care. I loomed over the officer. “I want the paint analyzed. I want to know where that truck was purchased. I want to know who had the technical capability to take out two different camera grids.”

“Mr. Wolfe, we’re already— ”

“I don’t care what you’re already doing,” I snapped, my voice cutting through the room like a blade. “This wasn’t a hit-and-run. This was an attempted assassination. Someone tried to kill a Wolfe and a Devereaux in broad daylight. Find out who.”

The officers exchanged a glance, one of those ’rich man playing detective’ looks, but they nodded. “We’ll prioritize the investigation, sir.”

“You do that.”

The door closed behind them, leaving us alone again. The silence was different now. It was no longer the silence of relief; it was the silence of a hunt.

“You think they’ll find anything?” Cyan asked.

“No,” I said, pacing the small room. “The cameras being down is the smoking gun. This was professional. Too clean. They knew where we would be, and they knew the blind spots.”

Cyan looked at his cast, then back at me. “So? Who do you think? Who hates us enough to go through all this trouble?”

I stopped pacing and looked out the window at the Barcelona skyline. My mind flashed to my father’s enthusiastic agreement on the phone earlier. I thought of Durant’s warning about running from myself. And I thought of the way Alex Hendrix had looked at Noah.

“The list is long,” I said, my voice low and dangerous. “Infact there are quite a number of people who would benefit from me being out of the picture right now.”

Cyan’s eyes widened. “You don’t think…”

“I think,” I said, “that the war has officially started.”

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