Chapter 47 Chapter 47
Chapter 47
Nina’s POV
The room had already tipped into madness. Guests shoved and screamed, masks slipping from faces slick with sweat.
Chandeliers swung wildly overhead, scattering fractured rainbows across the marble floor like broken glass.
Security guards barked orders into radios, rifles glinting under spotlights, while generals and diplomats clawed toward the exits. In the center of it all, on that cursed stage, Isabella threw herself at the guards like a woman possessed.
She lunged forward, nails raking the taller guard’s arm as he pinned Josh against the pillar. Her black silk gown tore at the seam with a sharp rip, but she did not care.
“Get your hands off him!” she screamed, voice cracking into something raw and feral. Tears streamed down her flawless cheeks, mascara carving dark rivers. Her breath came in frantic, heaving gasps, shocking everyone who saw it. Isabella—the ice queen, the untouchable venom—crumbling like this? The guards hesitated, one stepping back as she shoved him hard in the chest.
“He’s my brother! You have no right!”
Josh twisted in the remaining guard’s grip, face pale as bone, but a glimmer of triumph flickered in his eyes. The black remote lay on the stage floor now, red button winking like an evil eye.
The crowd’s panic swelled around us, a tidal wave of bodies surging for the doors. Champagne flutes shattered underfoot, mixing with spilled blood from a trampled diplomat’s split lip. The air reeked of fear—sweat, expensive perfume turned sour, and the metallic tang of impending doom.
Then it started.
A low electronic beep echoed from the pillar. The red digital numbers that had been frozen at zero flickered to life.
5:00. Then 4:59. 4:58.
The countdown began, steady and merciless, each tick amplified through hidden speakers like a heartbeat racing toward explosion.
The room froze for a split second, then detonated into pure terror. Screams pierced the air, high and animal.
A woman in a feather mask collapsed to her knees, sobbing. A general shoved past his aide, trampling the man’s foot in his haste. “It’s real!” someone yelled. “The bomb is real!”
Josh wrenched free from the distracted guard, Isabella pulling him behind her like a shield. He reached into his jacket pocket with a shaking hand and pulled out a small black device—another remote, sleek and matte, its screen glowing green.
He held it high, then hurled it into the crowd. It arced through the air, spinning, and landed amid a cluster of fleeing guests. They scattered like roaches, one man tripping over a fallen chair and crashing to the floor.
“Five minutes!” Josh shouted, voice cracking with manic glee. “That’s all you have!”
Panic turned to bedlam. People clambered over each other, gowns ripping, tuxedos staining with spilled wine and blood.
A waiter dropped his tray, silver clanging against marble. The mystery bidder—the tall man in black with his white Arabian thobe—stood motionless in the rear, smile still fixed beneath his obsidian mask, as if this were all part of some grand entertainment. Security tried to form lines, but the VIPs demanded priority, shoving through with bodyguards in tow.
One diplomat slipped on the wet floor, falling hard, his mask cracking against the stone.
Amanda grabbed my arm tighter, nails digging into my skin. “Nina, move!”
But the security guards turned on us. Two more appeared from the wings, blocking our path off the stage. “VIP evacuation first,” one growled, rifle slung low but ready. “You two stay put.”
We were trapped. The crowd parted like a sea for the elites—the generals barking into phones, diplomats flanked by armed escorts—but the rest fell in heaps, tripping over heels and chairs, a tangle of limbs and silk.
A woman screamed as her arm twisted under someone’s boot. The countdown boomed overhead: 4:30. 4:29. Each second felt like a hammer blow to my chest.
Out of pure, boiling anger, I spun toward Isabella. She stood protectively in front of Josh, wiping tears from her face with the back of her hand, breath still ragged.
“Isabella!” I shouted over the din. “Why are you doing this with Josh? What the hell is wrong with you?”
She turned slowly, eyes locking on mine with a hatred so pure it burned. Her lips curled into a hiss.
“You bitch, not everything is about you! Just because you’re trapped with those three monsters and they’re giving you a little attention, you think you’ve won? I don’t even think you could survive a single hickey from any of them, you stupid ass girl! I hated the fact that you made my brother look like a psychopath, and I’m so glad your mother is gone. I wish it was your father instead. He thinks he can steal the senator and presidential seat from our father. Josh and I won’t let that happen, and that’s why we’re here. Seventy percent of my father’s political and business enemies are in this room, and we’re going to make sure they don’t leave. I only used the men to get what I want, and you almost ruined it for me. I will come for you, Nina.”
Her words slammed into me like fists. My mother—dead and dragged into this filth. My father—a thief in her eyes? The presidential seat? It all spun in my head, pieces of a puzzle I never knew existed. Isabella’s face twisted with rage, tears still falling, but her stance was defiant, protecting Josh like he was the last thing she had left.
The countdown ticked relentlessly: 3:45. 3:44. Sirens wailed faintly in the distance—police, fire services—too far to matter.
I swallowed hard, voice shaking but loud. “That’s a stupid idea, you know. You’re still going to die with the rest of us.”
Josh stepped out from behind her, an evil chuckle rumbling from his throat. He looked unhinged now, hair disheveled, mask hanging crooked. “So you think that’s the only bomb, huh?”
His words hung in the air like poison. The device he had thrown into the crowd beeped once—loud, piercing—and another countdown started from speakers hidden in the walls. 3:00. 2:59.
Multiple bombs. The realization hit the room like a wave. More screams. A man near the front fainted, collapsing into a heap of tuxedo and spilled blood from a cut forehead. Women clutched pearls and diamonds, as if jewels could save them.
The mystery bidder finally moved, gliding toward a side exit with eerie calm, his white thobe flowing like a ghost.
Everyone was crying for help now—pleas echoing off the vaulted ceilings, phones held high for signals that did not come. A child—some diplomat’s daughter, no older than ten—wailed in her mother’s arms, buried in feathers and silk.
The guards abandoned order, joining the stampede. Bodies piled at the doors, fists pounding glass that refused to break. The air thickened with sobs and shouts, the scent of fear turning acrid.
Amanda yanked me again, her grip slick with sweat. “Nina, please!”
But I stood rooted, staring at Isabella and Josh. Siblings. Conspirators. Destroyers. The countdowns synced now: 2:15. 2:14.
Sirens grew louder outside, red and blue lights flashing through distant windows, but the building was a fortress—locked down, inescapable.
Isabella met my gaze one last time, her tears drying into something harder. Josh’s chuckle faded into a cough, but his eyes burned with victory. The pillar’s red numbers glowed brighter, wires humming faintly as if alive.
The sounds of police and fire service sirens could be heard from afar.
They were suspiciously too calm for my liking especially knowing that the bomb is going to explode.
I panicked so hard that incisions breathe but I muster “ Are you so evil that you wouldn’t mind dying just for money , power and politics?”