Chapter 23 Wreckage and Resolve
Chapter 23 Wreckage and Resolve
CASSIAN
My confidence in her was a fortress, built on cold, hard data. The research made into Lysandra's past was meticulous; her driving skill wasn't just competence, it was artistry, a language she spoke fluently in tire marks and controlled drifts. It was the one thing about her I understood perfectly. Music might have been her soul, but driving was her instinct. I was certain she wouldn't lose. My only contingency was Sebastian's capacity for underhanded tactics—a sabotaged car or a bribed official. I was prepared for corporate treachery. I was not prepared for this.
The scream of the engines was a familiar symphony until it wasn't.
It happened in a horrifying, slow-motion fracture of a second. I saw her Porsche, a silver bullet, approach the chicane's razor's edge. She was pushing, exactly as I’d advised, carrying impossible speed. Then, the rear tires lost their tenuous grip on reality. The car snapped into a violent, sickening pirouette.
Time didn't just slow; it shattered.
No! Counter-steer. Catch it.
My knuckles were white, my own body tensing as if I could physically wrestle the car back onto the tarmac from the observation suite. The Porsche slewed sideways, a dead weight sliding inexorably towards the concrete barrier that promised oblivion.
This is my fault. I put her in that cockpit. I forced this game. If she—
The thought couldn’t form. It was a void I refused to approach.
BOOM!!!
The sound was not just loud; it was a physical blow to the chest, a sickening crunch of metal and dreams. It echoed in the sudden, deafening silence that followed the ceased engines.
I was moving before my mind registered the command. My chair clattered to the floor behind me as I erupted from the suite, a raw, guttural sound tearing from my throat. "Lysandra!"
The track was a blur. The world narrowed to a funnel of smoke and a single, desperate destination. Dread, cold and absolute, washed over me, freezing the blood in my veins. The calculating CEO was gone, replaced by something primal.
Please. Please be alive. I swear, if she is, I will burn the world for her. I will never use her as a pawn again. Just let her be breathing.
"Boss, wait!" Felix’s voice was distant, irrelevant.
"Call a medical team! Now!" I roared over my shoulder, not breaking stride. My security detail scrambled behind me, a dissonant echo of order in my chaotic wake.
As I neared the plume of acrid smoke, a sliver of confusion pierced the panic. Sebastian’s McLaren was nowhere in sight. He should have blasted past the wreckage, claiming his victory. Had he stopped? The idea was ludicrous. Sebastian valued a win above human life.
"Sir!" Felix was at my elbow, his breathing controlled but his face grim. "It's not her car."
I skidded to a halt, my heart a frantic, caged bird against my ribs. "What?" The word was a ragged gasp.
"Miss Lysandra avoided the full impact. She spun out but came to a stop. The crash was Sebastian. He tried to overtake her on the inside during her spin, lost control, and hit the barrier head-on."
The information took a moment to process, my brain struggling to rewrite the horror it had just witnessed. The relief was so profound it was dizzying, immediately followed by a fresh wave of cold pragmatism. Sebastian was down. This was no longer a game.
"Get to him. Ensure he receives immediate care. His people will be here any second. Contain the scene," I ordered, my voice regaining a shred of its usual steel.
Felix nodded. "On it."
I turned and sprinted the final distance to where the silver Porsche was nestled against the barrier, its front end a crumpled sculpture of what once was. The driver's side door was wedged shut, but through the cracked windshield, I could see her.
Her head was bowed, resting against the deployed airbag. Her shoulders shook with silent, ragged sobs.
"Lysandra!" I yelled, my voice cracking.
Her head snapped up. The sight of her face, pale and streaked with tears but alive, undid me. I wrenched the passenger door open, the metal groaning in protest. Unclipping her harness, I reached across the console, my hands gentler than they had ever been.
"I've got you," I murmured, pulling her from the wreckage. "I've got you."
She was trembling violently, a leaf in a storm, her breaths coming in short, sharp hiccups. She clung to me, her fingers digging into the fabric of my shirt as if I were the only solid thing left in her spinning world. I held her tightly, one arm around her back, the other cradling her head against my chest, my own heart hammering a frantic, grateful rhythm against hers.
After a long moment, I felt her stir. Gently, I shifted, turning and lowering myself to one knee. "Here," I said, guiding her onto my back for a piggyback ride, wanting to put as much distance as possible between her and the wreck. She was too shaken to walk.
As I stood, her voice, small and broken, reached my ear. "I'm so... so sorry, Cassian. I tried. I really did. I'm so sorry about the car."
The apology, so selfless and misplaced, was a knife to my conscience. My throat tightened. She had just faced death, and her first thought was for a replaceable machine I had carelessly gambled.
"Stop," I commanded, my voice husky with emotion I didn't try to hide. "Don't you dare apologize. The car is nothing. Scrap metal. You are alive. That is the only thing that matters." I adjusted my grip on her, holding her more securely. "And I am the one who is sorry. I should never have agreed to that idiotic bet. I put you in that car. This is on me."
She was silent for a few steps, her cheek resting against my shoulder. Then, softly, she pleaded, "Please don't get another one. Don't replace it. It was my first car... ever. Can... can you fix it?"
The request, so full of sentimental attachment to the very object of her trauma, undid me completely. In that moment, she wasn't the fierce driver or the desperate sister; she was just a young woman who had been given a gift and wanted to hold onto its memory.
"If that is what you want," I said, my voice impossibly soft, "then I will have it restored to perfection."
The sound of running feet and sirens fractured the moment. The ambulance and Sebastian's security team swarmed the other crash site. I carried Lysandra towards them, my pace measured now, the initial panic replaced by a cold, grim purpose.
I reached the circle of people surrounding the mangled orange McLaren. Paramedics were working frantically. And then I saw him.
Sebastian was laid out on a stretcher, his body unnaturally still. His face was ashen, a trickle of blood marring his temple. A paramedic leaned over him, then looked up at his partner, shaking his head once, sharply.
He wasn't breathing.