CHAPTER 249: FALL

My vision swam as tears spilled over, dripping onto the glowing screen and distorting the cruel words, but never enough to erase them.

"Elise..." ..." My voice cracked, a desperate whisper. I showed her the article anyway, like proof of the nightmare clawing at me.

She read fast—eyes skimming, narrowing, then finally glassing over with tears. Her face crumpled. She reached for me, pulled me against her with a fierceness that undid me completely.

"No, no, my daughter," she whispered into my hair, the words shaking with fury. "Not one word of this will be tolerated. Do you hear me? Not one."

Her arms locked around me, warm and trembling, while she barked orders over my head. "Call Adrien. Or Cameron. Now."

Her assistant, pale and fumbling, nodded and dialed from the passenger seat. Elise rocked me gently as I fought to breathe. My husband cheated on me.. my life is ruined. I ruined my family’s life too.

"Think of the baby, Isabella," she said firmly, brushing the wet hair from my face. "In and out. Just breathe for your little one. I won’t let them touch you. Not the world, not anyone."

Her words should have anchored me, but the storm kept raging in my chest and my phone kept buzzing.

"Ma’am," the assistant stammered, one phone pressed to her ear as she was using another to try their numbers. "Their lines... they’re both switched off. Mr. Walton, Cameron, even the others. None are reachable."

"What?" Elise snapped, her voice sharp as glass. She snatched a phone from her assistant, already trying another number, her hand trembling with barely contained rage.

The car lurched as the driver obeyed her next order: "Find another route. Turn us off this bridge. Now."

The tires screeched faintly as he tried to maneuver through the tight press of traffic, inching toward a side exit.

And then—

A shadow. Headlights. Too fast. Too close.

BAM!

The sound of shattering glass and crunching metal filled the air as our car was struck from the side. I felt a jolt of pain as my body was thrown against the seatbelt, my head spinning from the impact. Elise’s arms tightened around me, holding me in place as the car careened out of control.

The world tilted violently. My head slammed against something hard, and for a terrifying moment, all I could feel was a blinding white pain and the sickening lurch of the car. Elise’s cries, choked and desperate, were swallowed by the shriek of tortured metal. I heard a metallic groan, a final, drawn-out sigh from the vehicle that had been our fragile sanctuary.

Then, silence. A heavy, ringing silence that pressed in on my ears.

My breath hitched. The baby. I instinctively brought a hand to my still-flat stomach, a primal, terrified gesture as every ounce of my body screamed with pain. Were they alright? Was I alright? The news article, the hatred, the inability to reach Adrien – it all felt like a distant, surreal dream, overshadowed by the immediate, brutal reality of the crash.

The silence was heavy, thick with the smell of scorched earth and leaking fuel. I hung suspended, tethered by the seatbelt that dug mercilessly into my ribs. Gravity had reversed, and the world was a jagged mosaic of fractured glass and ripped upholstery.

A searing wave of nausea rolled over me, followed by a dizzying spike of pain behind my eyes. I pushed against the crumpled ceiling, which was now the floor. My head was throbbing—a rivulet of warmth traced a path down my temple, pooling stickily near my left eye. The blood. My blood.

"My baby," I gasped inwardly, the word weak and useless.

I tried to call out, "Elise?" but the sound caught in my throat, just a dry rasp. Beside me, the passenger door was twisted inward, unrecognizable. The assistant, wedged in the front seat, made a low, guttural sound, confirming she was alive.

For a split second, everything went still. Silent. Weightless.

Adrien, the baby, Dad, Aria, Leo—names stuttered in my mind, a fragile prayer breaking apart.

Then the darkness rushed in, swift and merciless.

****

ADRIEN’S POV

The sea always had a way of concealing secrets. The waves crashed against the steel hulls of containers, the whistle of the cranes overhead, the stink of diesel in the air—on any other day, it was business as usual at the port. But today, it was a bitter shroud, heavy with the stench of deception and the chilling realization that my company’s name was being used to facilitate something monstrous. The port, a hive of activity, buzzed with a false sense of legitimacy that made my gut clench.

Cameron and Gray, their faces grim, had just finished briefing me. The intel was stark, terrifying. Shipping routes rerouted, not for profit, but for something far more sinister. It wasn’t just cargo being moved; it was people. And not just any people. Kids. My blood ran cold. My company, under my unwitting command, was a front for human trafficking. And the method? Heartless. They were using their bodies, their innocent systems, as conduits for drugs. Sacs, they called them. Imagine the agony, the terror.

"It’s a shadow play, Adrien," Cameron’s voice was a low growl, the usual jovial tone replaced by a steely edge. "Ghost ships, ghost manifests. They’re running a parallel system, piggybacking on your infrastructure."

"They’re not just moving them, they’re using them." Gray said. "And the drugs... it’s a delivery system. Disposable."

Disgusted, furious, I clenched my fists. This had to stop. Now. I’d authorized this portside meeting, intending to personally oversee the verification of the intel. I needed to see it, to understand the scope of this depravity, to... to act.

As if on cue, a colossal container, suspended by a crane, shifted violently. A deafening metallic groan ripped through the air. Time seemed to warp, stretching into an agonizing slow-motion. I saw it happen – the thick, frayed rope snapping. The monstrous metal box lurched, a pendulum of death, swinging directly towards us.

"Move!" I roared, shoving Cameron and Gray to the side. The air behind me whipped with the force of the falling container as it crashed onto the concrete, mere feet from where we had stood. A shower of dust, debris, and splintered wood rained over us.