Chapter 156: Verdict

CASSIAN

I stood on the sidewalk, a solitary figure against the fading opulence of the hotel, and watched the taillights of Noah’s car bleed into the evening traffic.

I didn’t move until the vehicle was entirely out of sight, lost behind a corner three blocks away. Only then did I reach into my coat pocket and pull out my phone.

I opened a dedicated, encrypted app. Immediately, a high-definition live feed flickered to life.

A camera mounted discreetly in the backseat of the lead SUV showed Noah. He was sitting precisely where I had left him, his head leaned back against the headrest, staring out the window at the passing city. He looked small, thoughtful, and profoundly sad… but he was breathing, and he was moving toward the airport.

I checked the secondary telemetry. The GPS pinged steadily, showing the two escort vehicles holding a perfect diamond formation around his car. Each of those vehicles contained four of my most seasoned men, armed and instructed to treat Noah as if he were the Wolfe crown jewels.

Satisfied, I pocketed the phone, though I kept the haptic alerts active against my thigh. If his car deviated by even a single degree, I would know.

I turned toward the second car waiting at the curb. This one was different… older, a matte black that seemed to swallow the light of the streetlamps. Lake stood beside the rear door, his face a granite mask of professionalism. He didn’t speak; he didn’t have to.

I slid into the backseat, Lake following on the other side. The moment the door thudded shut, the atmosphere in the vehicle shifted. The scent of leather and expensive cologne was replaced by the cold, sterile air of a hunt.

“The subject is secured in the basement of the industrial site,” Lake briefed as the car pulled away, heading in the opposite direction of the airport. “He’s stable but deteriorating fast. The tourniquet on the thigh is holding, but he’s lost a significant amount of blood. He’s been… quite persistent. Begging for a doctor. Begging to see you.”

“Good,” I said. The word was a chip of ice.

We drove through the outskirts of Barcelona, leaving the glittering tourist traps behind for the skeletal remains of the industrial district. Here, the warehouses were hulking shadows and the streetlights were few and far between. It was a place where screams were lost to the wind and no one asked questions.

The car stopped in front of a nondescript brick building. Two guards at the door snapped to attention, nodding as I passed. I descended the metal stairs into the basement, my boots echoing with a rhythmic, predatory clang against the steel.

The air downstairs was damp and smelled of rust and copper. In the center of the concrete floor, illuminated by a single, flickering bulb, was Alex Hendrix.

He was zip-tied to a heavy wooden chair, a pathetic ruin of the man who had stood so arrogantly at the gala. His white shirt was a roadmap of violence… soaked through with blood from the gunshot wounds to his shoulder and arm. His leg was propped up, a tourniquet biting into the flesh of his thigh, while his ankle hung at a sickening, purple angle.

When he saw me, his eyes… wide and bloodshot… nearly leaped out of his head.

“Please! Please, Cassian!” His voice was a hoarse wreck. Tears and sweat had turned his face into a muddy mask. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Don’t kill me! I’ll give you anything! My father’s shares, money… just please, call a doctor!”

I approached him slowly, my hands buried in my pockets. I looked at him the way a scientist looks at a specimen under a microscope… with clinical curiosity and zero empathy.

“You want to live?” I asked, stopping a foot away.

“Yes! Yes, anything!” he sobbed, nodding frantically.

“Then let’s talk about Lorenzo Marchetti,” I said, my voice hardening. “I know you met with him two days before the gala. Don’t lie to me, Alex. I have the logs.”

Alex’s face went from pale to ghostly. “I… that was just business… he approached me for an investment… ”

I leaned down, bringing my face inches from his. The smell of his fear was pungent. “Tell me what you discussed, or I’ll remove that tourniquet and watch you drain onto this floor in three minutes.”

He broke. The words came tumbling out in a frantic, disjointed stream. Marchetti had approached him because he knew Alex was desperate for the Wolfe merger.

Lorenzo wanted me dead… ordered by Emilio Marchetti as vengeance for his father. Alex had provided my security schedules, my private floor access, and the layout of the gala. In exchange, Lorenzo had promised him twenty million in offshore shares.

“I didn’t actually help with the hit!” Alex wailed. “I just gave him the info! I didn’t think he’d actually do it!”

“Liar,” I whispered. “You hoped he would. You thought that if I were dead, you could manipulate the board and take the entire project for yourself.”

I straightened up, brushing a speck of dust off my coat. “Here’s the deal, Alex. You give Lake every single detail. Every meeting place. Every word Lorenzo said. Every plan for the assassination. If you do that… I’ll consider letting you live.”

Hope is a cruel thing. I watched it flare in his eyes… a pathetic, desperate light. He talked for twenty minutes, giving up names, bank accounts, and secret clubs. Lake recorded every word, building an airtight coffin for the Marchetti family.

When Alex finally finished, he looked up at me, panting. “There. I gave it all to you. Now… the doctor? You said you’d consider…”

“I did,” I said, turning back to him. I drew my suppressed firearm from its holster in one fluid, practiced motion. “I considered it. The answer is no.”

“No… no, please… ”

Phut.

The sound was no louder than a handclap. Alex’s head snapped back, his body jerking once before falling limp against the zip-ties. A dark pool began to spread across the concrete.

I lowered the gun, staring at the body. I felt nothing. No rush of adrenaline, no spark of regret. It was simply a task completed. This was for Noah… for the hand he’d laid on him, for the drugs he’d forced down his throat. In my world, this was mercy. I could have made it last days.

I turned to Lake. “Clean it up. Plant the Marchetti signature weapon. Make sure the ballistics match their previous hits. I want the narrative clear: Lorenzo killed his co-conspirator to cover his tracks. And make sure the ’anonymous’ tip hits the police in four hours. I want Lorenzo in a cell before sunrise.”

“Understood,” Lake said.

I walked out of the basement, the cool night air of the outskirts hitting my face like a benediction. I checked my phone. Noah was ten minutes from the airport. Safe.

I had kept my word.

Forty-five minutes later, my car pulled onto the private terminal’s tarmac. The jet was prepped, its engines a low whine in the night.

Noah was standing near the stairs, flanked by my guards. He looked small against the backdrop of the massive aircraft, his shoulders hunched against the wind. When he spotted my car, I saw his entire body relax… a visible sagging of his frame that made my chest tighten.

I exited the car and walked toward him. “Ready?”

Noah nodded, his voice quiet. “Yeah.”

He didn’t ask where I had been. He didn’t ask about the faint scent of cordite that likely clung to my coat. He just followed me up the stairs and into the cabin.

The moment the door sealed, the rest of the world vanished. Spain, Alex, the Marchettis… they were all becoming shadows. As the jet lifted off, I watched Noah staring out the window, watching the lights of Barcelona shrink into a glittering grid and then disappear into the blackness of the Mediterranean.

He stayed quiet for the first few hours. I sat across from him, ostensibly working on my laptop, but my eyes rarely left him. He was nursing a glass of water, still pale from the cold he’d caught, his eyes unfocused.

Mid-flight, my phone buzzed with a news alert.

HEADLINE: Business Heir Alex Hendrix Found Dead – Mob Connection Suspected.

I scrolled through the article with a cold satisfaction. It was perfect. The police had found the “recording” of Alex’s confession, the planted financial records, and the murder weapon linked to Lorenzo Marchetti. Lorenzo had been intercepted at a private airfield trying to flee to Italy. He was being held without bail.

But the real victory followed in the secondary headlines. With Alex dead and the investigation open, the dam had broken. Victims… real victims of Alex’s past… were coming forward. Reports of drugging and assault that had been buried by Hendrix money were being unearthed. By the time we landed, the Hendrix name would be synonymous with filth.

“What are you reading?” Noah asked, his voice sleepy.

I immediately closed the laptop switching to sit beside him. “Business,” I said. “Nothing important. Go to sleep, Noah.”

A few hours later, I felt a weight on my shoulder. Noah had finally succumbed to exhaustion, his head lolling over until it rested against my arm.

I froze, my breath hitching. I didn’t move. I didn’t want to wake him. It was the first real rest he’d had since morning, and as his breathing leveled out into a deep, rhythmic calm, I let myself lean my head back and close my eyes.

The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon when the wheels touched the ground at our private airfield. The air that greeted us as we descended the stairs was cool and crisp… the familiar, clean air of home.

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