Chapter 117 Stalking
The gunshot cracked through the night like thunder.
Everywhere went deathly still even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Samantha froze, heart slamming against her ribs.
Nicholas’s scream shattered the silence as his last two fingers fell off to the floor rolling slightly before stopping at Sam’s feet.
“Fuckkk!! Fuck!!! FUCK!!!”
Samantha’s breath caught, slowly she turned toward the direction the gunshot came from.
There he stood. Rayan.
The Gun in his hand was still raised, smoke curling lazily from the barrel. His eyes weren’t the heated, possessive ones she’d seen in the café or the VVIP booth.
They were burning with fury. The kind of anger that burned everything in its path.
She hadn’t felt the sting when Nicholas slapped her or his bruising grip on her arm.
But now that Rayan had seen her like this, blood on her mouth, almost naked, mascara streaking down her face, the real pain bloomed deep in her chest, sharp and excruciating.
Nicholas’s voice ripped through the quiet again, shrill with panic.
“Get that motherfucker!! GET HIM!!”
His men didn’t move.
They stared at Rayan like they had seen a ghost rise from the grave.
“Boss…” one whispered.
“Boss…” the other echoed, voice cracking.
Nicholas wondered why there wasn’t any action, his voice rose into hysteria.
“I said—”
“Nicholas.”
Rayan’s voice cut through the night in familiarity. “So good to see you again.”
Samantha’s head jerked up.
They knew each other?
Rayan never once looked away from her as he came close.
His gaze raked over her disheveled state, as she sat on the filthy concrete like something broken.
The sight seemed to carve something deeper into his expression, his jaw tightened.
Nicholas finally looked up, clutching his bleeding hand. Color drained from his face so fast it was almost comic.
“R…Rayan…? You’re… alive…?”
“That shouldn’t be your problem.”
Rayan’s tone was ice.
“The fact that you touched my woman should be.”
He looked at the fingerprint on her cheeks and fired another shot louder and closer.
Nicholas’s thigh exploded in red; he collapsed sideways with a loud howl, blood pooling beneath him in seconds.
Samantha flinched, but she couldn’t look away.
Rayan lowered the gun, he reached her, dropping to one knee.
Without a word he removed his black shirt, his muscles shifting under his tattooed skin as he draped it over her trembling shoulders. The fabric was warm from his body, it smelled like suave gunpowder and him
“I’m really sorry I left you,” he murmured, his voice soft, almost reverent as he removed the hair sticking to her face gently.
“I’m here now. And I will never leave you again.”
Her lips quivered. Something inside her cracked wide open. Her tears came fast, hot, unstoppable.She broke down, heaving sobs that shook her entire frame.
All the nights she had swallowed in fear, all the pretending to be brave, all the pain she had carried alone, it poured out of her in ugly, wrenching waves.
Rayan didn’t speak.
He simply scooped her up, one arm under her knees, the other cradling her back, lifting her as if she weighed nothing.
She buried her face in his bare chest, fingers clutching at his skin, crying into the steady thunder of his heartbeat.
He turned slightly, just enough to glance down at Nicholas writhing on the ground.
“I’ll send your warm regards to the old man,” Rayan said quietly.
“Snitch.”
Nicholas’s voice rose in desperate, broken panic.
“No..no..no…I didn’t know she was your woman..I swear…!”
Rayan didn’t answer.
He simply walked away, carrying Samantha towards his black sports car parked at the entrance of the club.
He sat on the driver's seat with her on his lap not saying a word until her sobs quieted slowly into ragged breaths against his throat.
When she finally had enough air, she lifted her head just enough to look at him.
Blood was still smeared across her chin, her eyes red-rimmed and searching. She sniffed.
“Who the fuck are you, Rayan?”
\~~~~~~~~~
“Can’t you stay the night, Maverick?” Eva asked.
He had just tucked Havilah into bed. His daughter had clung to him the moment she saw him, refusing to let go that was the only reason he had stayed this long.
“I have something to do,” he replied, already turning away from her room.
“Can’t it wait till morning?” she pressed. “It’s late, and we don’t even know if Father might faint again.”
“The doctor confirmed it’s stress,” Maverick said evenly. “I’ve already sent a message requesting his leave. He’ll be fine.”
What he didn’t say was that his mind was already elsewhere with her.
He needed to go back to Heaven.
When he had rushed to the Richards estate after his mother’s frantic call, he’d found his father sitting upright, calmly sipping tea, while his mother dabbed his mouth with a kerchief. They’d told him General Richard had slumped briefly from stress and woken not long after, the doctor confirming it wasn’t serious.
Eva stared at him.
She had felt it for a while now, something had changed.
He no longer drank himself numb, looked miserable or visited the Avalon mansion he’d bought for her. There was this spark in his eyes again. When his father offered to find her, Maverick had shut it down immediately.
Was he cheating on her again?
Where was he always going?
She watched him grab his keys, his movements decisive, practiced, final. He didn’t hesitate as he walked out.
Eva’s fingers curled into her palm, nails biting into skin as a knot tightened painfully in her chest.
Without a word, she reached for her own keys.