Chapter 61: The Aftermath

The silence on the other side felt unnatural—like the air had been sucked out of the room.

His hand slipped into his coat pocket. The spare key felt colder than it should have.

He hesitated only a second before sliding it into the lock.

The click echoed louder than it had any right to.

He pushed the door open slowly.

Darkness swallowed the room.

His pulse began to climb.

He stepped inside and reached for the oil lamp near the wall. The wick caught after two strikes. Flame flickered weakly, then steadied, casting long, distorted shadows across the room.

The bed was empty.

And on the floor—

The leader lay sprawled beside the bed, neck bent at an impossible angle.

Eyes open. Unblinking.

His mouth hung slightly ajar, as if the last thing he’d tried to do was shout.

But no one had heard him.

The deputy leader’s grip tightened around the lamp. The flame trembled with his hand.

No blood.

No sign of struggle beyond the pillow thrown on the floor and the rope still hanging from the window.

The rope.

His eyes snapped toward it.

The window was cracked open just enough for someone slender.

Someone trained.

Someone who hadn’t panicked.

Cold realization settled into his bones.

This wasn’t chaos.

This was precision.

“The leader is dead,” he whispered, the words tasting foreign in his mouth.

Then, within minutes, his scream tore through the second floor. Boots thundered against stairs. Doors slammed open. Men flooded the hallway, weapons drawn, confusion snapping into panic.

And then the name spread like wildfire.

Agila.

Agila is dead.

On the second floor, Amante stood at the center of it all, staring at the body lying across the long table. The oil lamps threw flickering shadows over Agila’s face, making his broken neck look even more grotesque.

The formidable rebel leader of Ourea—feared across provinces, hunted by the military for years—reduced to a lifeless shape under dim light.

And killed by a woman.

The words alone felt like insult.

“Damn it!” Amante roared.

His boot slammed into the leg of a heavy wooden table. The crack echoed through the chamber. Papers scattered. A glass toppled and shattered across the stone floor.

“How could he lower his guard?” He cursed.

No one answered.

“Idiot!” he spat.

“Stupid!”

Each word was less about Agila and more about the humiliation burning under Amante’s skin.

Agila had survived ambushes. Assassination attempts. Military raids. He had outplayed colonels and captains alike.

And now this?

Who would have thought that the slender woman slipped through their walls and escaped just like that? Through their roof. Through their pride.

No gunfire.

No struggle loud enough to alert the guards.

Just precision.

Amante dragged a hand down his face, pacing like a caged predator. The jungle pressed in around the stronghold, black and endless beyond the perimeter lights. Crickets screamed in the distance. The canopy swallowed the moon.

They couldn’t search now.

Anyone who knew the Ourea jungle understood that night belonged to something else. Ravines disappeared under shadow. Vines concealed sinkholes. One wrong step and even armed men vanished.

“We wait until first light,” one of his lieutenants said carefully.

Amante stopped pacing.

His jaw tightened.

“I was right,” he muttered, almost to himself.

He had felt it the moment he saw her—too calm, too observant. Not desperate enough. Not broken enough.

“That woman is not simple.”

Not prey.

His eyes lifted slowly toward the dark window where the rope still hung, swaying slightly in the night breeze.

“Find her,” he said, voice dropping into something colder than rage. “I don’t care if you have to tear this jungle apart tree by tree.”

Outside, the stronghold erupted into chaos—search teams assembling, weapons loading, radios crackling, orders overlapping.

And somewhere beyond the tree line, beneath a sky still heavy with night—

That woman was already moving farther away.

…

Somewhere far away—

Sleep had abandoned Ares since two nights ago.

The mansion lights were still on, every floor awake, every corridor humming with low voices and hurried footsteps.

The city outside glittered beyond the glass walls—traffic flowing, sirens wailing in the distance, life continuing with brutal indifference.

Inside his study, the air was heavy.

Maps covered the long oak table. Screens glowed with satellite feeds, traffic grids, security footage pulled from half the city. Coffee sat untouched. Whiskey too.

It has been two days and two nights.

Still, nothing solid.

Ares stood by the window, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled up. The stubble along his jaw had darkened. His eyes were red—not from tears, but from calculation without rest.

He had already called in the Norse brothers.

When the situation crossed from private to war-level serious, you called men like them. Their networks reached into military intelligence, black-market channels, offshore systems.

Within hours, both the military and Ares’s own organization were sweeping ports, highways, airstrips.

At first, he ruled out ransom.

No one bold enough to touch his daughter would dare negotiate.

But the message came anyway.

Unknown number. Encrypted relay.

We got your daughter. One billion for her life.

No greeting. No proof-of-life image. No theatrics.

Just a number demanding one billion.

Ares didn’t flinch when he read it.

He traced the signal within minutes. It pinged from a public relay tower outside the capital.

By the time his men stormed the location, the sender was gone.

Burner device. Clean exit.

Another dead end.

His phone vibrated in his hand.

It was Liam.

Ares answered before the second ring.

“Talk.”

On the other end, wind noise and the distant chop of rotor blades.

“Ares,” Liam said, voice tight but controlled. “We pulled traffic cams from the east side. They hijacked a medical chopper and headed to the Hope Hospital in the east.”

Ares’s eyes hardened.

“They forced the pilot?”

“Negative. Pilot’s unconscious. Drugged. They knew exactly how long they had before anyone noticed.”

“Continue.”

“They flew low. Avoided primary radar. Landed near Estalis marina. Switched to a yacht—registered under a shell company. We tracked the vessel down the Praya River.”

A pause.

“We lost them at the Praya River. They killed the transponder and cut lights.”

Of course they did.

Ares turned from the window and walked back to the table, staring down at the illuminated map of waterways.

“They were buying time,” he murmured.

“Looks that way.”

Silence stretched between them—heavy, loaded.

“Thank you, Liam,” Ares said finally. His voice had gone rough from exhaustion, but steel ran beneath it. “This helps.”

“It’s our duty,” Liam replied without hesitation. Then softer, more personal: “And Lara’s my god sister. We don’t stop.”

Ares closed his eyes briefly.

Not in despair.

In focus.

Whoever had taken his Shay had planned layers—air, water, signal disruption. This wasn’t amateurs chasing ransom money.

This was someone who understood him.

Someone who knew how he would respond.

His hand curled slowly into a fist over the map of the Praya River.

One billion?

They had miscalculated.

This wasn’t about money anymore.

This was about power play.

And Ares never lose what belonged to him.

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