CHAPTER 287: LET’S BEGIN.

I sat in the back of the car, the engine humming like a restrained predator beneath us, but I didn’t hear it.

My eyes were fixed on the bakery window across the street.

Through the glass, my wife laughed at something her coworker said, brushing flour from her cheek with the back of her hand. Her hair was tied up. Her apron crooked.

Her laugh, soundless through the triple-pane glass, still resonated deep within me, a warm, familiar echo. I felt a pang, not of jealousy for the kindly older woman she was bantering with, but of something far more intricate. It was the ache of witnessing a perfect, undisturbed moment, a happiness I wasn’t sure I still had a place in.

A muscle in my jaw ticked as her silhouette passed the window again. I pressed my thumb against my knee to keep from getting out of the car and going to her.

I didn’t speak.

Didn’t breathe.

Just watched.

And wanted.

Just one touch.Just one moment.Just one reminder that she’s still here.

"She looks... good," Cameron murmured from the front seat, not turning around, just observing through the rearview. "Healthy."

I didn’t respond.

Not out loud.

Inside, I was going crazy.

She wiped her hands on her apron, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. She smiled at a little boy tugging at his mother’s coat. She reached over the counter. Handed him a cookie. Warm. Soft. Gentle.

My wife.

Mine.

"Adrien."

Cameron’s voice pulled me back. He turned halfway from the front seat, eyes sharp.

Nothing.

My eyes were still on her.

Still memorizing a face that once looked at me with fire and love and wrath and devotion—now looking at strangers instead.

The phone in Cameron’s hand buzzed once.

"Cous." His annoying voice rang out again.

I glared at him.

"Gray said the order has been carried out."

Silence.

I inhaled slowly, the first sound I’d made in five minutes.

"Drive."

The car pulled away from the curb, leaving the bakery behind, leaving my woman behind—my gaze stayed on the glass until it vanished around the corner.

****

We arrived at one of my private building just after dusk.

A converted financial vault on the outside.

A fortress within.

Concrete. Steel. Frosted perimeter walls.

A place built for a certain purpose.

My men opened my car door the moment we rolled to a stop, heads bowed.

Respect.

Fear.

Loyalty bought not with money, but with the blood we spilled together.

Cameron fell into step beside me, and together we moved toward the entrance.

We crossed the first threshold.

Then the second.

Then the biometric lock at the heart of the building.

Inside the hallway, Cameron spoke quietly.

"You did well by them, you know."

My stride didn’t falter.

"I did what was required."

I had.

I had already made sure every family affected by this nightmare would never struggle again.

Their wives had checks delivered to their doorsteps the morning after the funerals.

I paid off every mortgage.

Every debt.

Set scholarship funds for every child.

Lifetime pensions for the widows.

Medical coverage for their parents.

A private memorial, no press, no outsiders—only me, standing in front of their families, reading every single name myself.

And when the last candle was lit, I made one promise:

"Your loved ones will never want for anything.

I failed them once.

I will not fail you again."

I had honored them.

Because if I don’t carry their ghosts—who will?

Now, walking deeper into the belly of the building, I carried the weight of every life lost like iron armor.

They had begged me for justice.

They would get something far more precise.

It was time to deal with the two people who created this chaos.

Two people who truly believed death row was the worst that could happen to them.

They were wrong.

Hell was about to become a real place.

And it would start with me.

****

The vault-style door sealed behind us with a hydraulic hiss as we entered.

Inside, Gray stood with a cluster of scientists and security.

Clara and Caden hung upright, restrained—alive, conscious, and far too comfortable.

The second I stepped in, Clara tore herself free from the two female guards holding her.

"ADRIEN!" she cried, sprinting toward me.

Before anyone could stop her, she slammed into my chest, arms locking around me in a desperate, hysterical embrace ── hugging me as if she could stop the world from spinning, as if her terror could somehow undo everything she’d done.

"I thought—" she sobbed, shaking violently, "I thought I was going to die—I thought—Adrien—I was so scared—I knew—I knew you’d come—I knew you wouldn’t let them—"

I didn’t move.

Not one inch.

The room fell silent, the only sound Clara’s ragged sobs against my chest. The scent of her fear—sweat, salt, and something metallic—clung to her, sharp against the sterile air of the vault.

She turned her head, still clinging to me, and looked at Cam. "Thank you, Cam... I know you must’ve talked to him—I knew you wouldn’t let him kill me—"

Cameron shifted beside me uncomfortably. Gray’s hand hovered near his weapon. The scientists exchanged uneasy glances.

Clara’s grip tightened, her nails digging through the fabric of my shirt. She mistook my stillness for mercy. She pressed her face harder into my suit jacket, her words a wet, desperate mumble against the fabric. "I messed up, Adrien, I know I did... it was Caden’s idea, he forced me, I was so scared... but it’s over now. You came for me. We can fix this. We can go back to how we were."

Something dark unfurled inside me.

Slowly, deliberately, I raised my hands. But not to return her embrace.

My fingers curled into her hair, fisting the strands at the base of her skull, and pulled.

She gasped, stumbling backward as I wrenched her away from me. Her tear-streaked face tilted up, her wide, bloodshot eyes searching mine—for pity, for forgiveness, for the man she thought I still was.

"Scared?" My voice was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that made even my men tense. "You thought you were going to die?"

A shudder racked her body.

I stepped closer, forcing her to crane her neck further pulling her hair tighter. "Clara." Her name was a razor. "You should be scared."

Her breath hitched.

Two men immediately moved in, ripping her off me.

I inhaled once—sharp, irritated—and walked to my chair, sitting before them all.

A hand offered me sanitizer and a handkerchief; I took the handkerchief and the small plastic bottle of sanitizer, slowly, meticulously cleaning the area of my suit jacket where Clara’s tears and sweat had stained the expensive wool. I didn’t look at the stain itself; my eyes were locked on hers as she trembled.

One smear of her touch after another, erased.

A laugh echoed.

Caden.

"Well well..." he drawled, laughing like a maniac. "Look at this. The great Adrien Walton. I knew you’d come for us—but I didn’t think you’d put on this pathetic show."

No one reacted.

Caden continued.

"Tell me—why save us from being killed? Why drag us into your court circus if you weren’t going to let them execute us? Hm?"

I wiped the last of my fingers.

"You left me and your father in a container of maggots. I suffered. But you didn’t kill me."

Caden sneered.

"What else do you want? You ruined my name, my life, my reputation. You proved your point. You won. So why the hell am I still here? Why am I alive? Why am I—"

He smirked.

"Unless you just couldn’t let me die. Unless you still care. After all..."

His head tilted.

His smile widened.

"I am still your brother. Whether you like it or not, you weakling."

A long, deafening beat of silence.

I finished cleaning my hand and dropped the cloth.

Then lifted my eyes to look at Gray.

Just a look.

Gray moved.

Caden didn’t even see the hand coming.

CRACK.

Gray’s fist connected with Caden’s jaw with the force of a sledgehammer. The impact snapped his head sideways and he hit the floor.

Hard.

Blood splattered the concrete.

Clara screamed.

I didn’t blink.

I leaned back, hands resting on the arms of the chair, my pulse steady. I crossed my ankle over my knee, and finally spoke.

My voice when it came out was calm. Measured. Deadly.

"Let’s begin."