Chapter six: Collapse

Serena's POV 

I heard the knock before I heard my name.

“Mr. Lucas,” one of his men called from the hallway. His voice was too tight, too formal. Trouble had a sound, and that was it.

Lucas straightened beside the desk. “Stay here,” he murmured, already heading for the door.

No chance. The second he stepped out, I was right behind him.

The hallway was dim, lit only by a lamp that flickered like it was rethinking its career. Lucas’s man stood stiff, eyes darting between us.

“He’s fled,” he said.

My pulse kicked. “Who fled?”

Lucas swore under his breath and tried to guide me back into the room like I was some fragile ornament. “Serena, go inside. I’ll come talk to you in a minute.”

“I’m not a child, Lucas.” I brushed off his hand. “You don’t get to stand out here and play gatekeeper with the truth. Not anymore.”

“Serena—”

“No. I’m not walking away. If he doesn’t talk, I’m going to assume you’re hiding something.”

His jaw tightened. He turned to his man. “Say it.”

The man hesitated. “Sir, maybe she—”

“Say whatever you have to say,” Lucas ordered.

A muscle in the man’s cheek twitched. He pulled out his phone, tapped something, then looked at me with the kind of expression people reserved for delivering news no one wanted to give.

“The driver of the car,” he began. “He fled the country last night. We were tracking him, but—” He swallowed. “I just received the update.”

My stomach sank before he even said it.

“He’s dead, ma’am. Shot twice. We don’t know who ordered the hit yet.”

The hallway tilted. Or maybe I did.

All the fragile hope I’d been clutching cracked straight through the middle. I’d finally started to believe I was close to something—one truth, one answer, one person who could tell me why my life had been torn apart. And now he was gone. Erased.

“Serena.” Lucas’s voice was sharper now, closer. My knees buckled, and I barely felt the floor drop before his arms caught me.

The phone fell from the man’s hand, clattering on the tile. The sound echoed down the hall, too loud, too real.

I dug my fingers into Lucas’s shirt, trying to breathe, trying not to scream, trying not to fall apart again. Not here. Not in front of them.

But the truth was a knife, and someone had just twisted it deeper.

.

Lucas tightened his grip on me like he thought I’d shatter clean through if he loosened even a little. Maybe he wasn’t wrong. My lungs forgot how to work. Each inhale scraped.

“I’m fine,” I lied, even though my body was folding in on itself like wet paper.

“You’re not,” he said, and suddenly his voice had edges. Not at me—at the world. At whoever kept ripping the ground out from under my feet.

The hallway felt colder now. The air held its breath.

I forced myself upright, pushing off his chest. “Someone’s cleaning up,” I whispered. “Someone doesn’t want him talking.”

Lucas exchanged a look with his man. One of those silent conversations men in power have like they’ve trained their whole lives for war.

“Who knew we had him?” Lucas asked.

“Only your inner team,” the man replied. “And the contact who confirmed his escape.”

“Reach the contact,” Lucas said. “Now. And find out if he’s breathing.”

The man nodded and disappeared down the hall.

Lucas turned back to me. “Serena, come inside. This isn’t safe out here.”

I almost laughed. The bitter kind. “Lucas, nowhere is safe for me. That’s the whole point.”

He flinched, just barely, like I’d punched him with a truth he didn’t want to absorb.

I wiped at my face. My hand came away shaky. “Whoever killed him… they’re covering up the crash. They’re covering up Liam.”

His eyes darkened, stormy and unreadable. “I know.”

“And you didn’t think to mention that?” I snapped.

“I didn’t have confirmation.” His jaw locked. “And I didn’t want to put more weight on you until I did.”

“Too late.”

The words came out flat. Empty. My voice didn’t even sound like mine anymore.

Lucas stepped closer. “Serena.”

“No,” I said softly, shaking my head. “Don’t—don’t look at me like that. Like you’re sorry for breathing near me.”

He exhaled, somewhere between frustrated and helpless. “I’m not sorry for being near you. I’m sorry that every time you reach for a truth, someone kills it.”

That hit me harder than the news itself.

He reached out again, slower this time, giving me space to pull away. I didn’t. His hand rested at the back of my arm, steady, warm, grounding.

“Come sit down,” he murmured.

I nodded because fighting gravity was harder than agreeing with him. He guided me into the room, shut the door, and sat me on the edge of the bed like I was some storm-struck thing he wasn’t sure how to handle.

I hated the silence that followed. Too heavy. Too sharp. So I broke it before it swallowed me.

“What does this mean?” I whispered. “If the driver’s dead, does that mean the trail ends?”

“No.” Lucas sat across from me, elbows on his knees. “It means the trail just got clearer.”

I blinked at him. “How is a dead lead clearer?”

“Because desperate people make sloppy moves,” he said. “Whoever killed him is panicking. They did this fast, which means they’re scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“You.”

I almost laughed again, but it came out choked. “Lucas, I’m not exactly terrifying.”

“You survived something you weren’t supposed to,” he said bluntly. “And you’re asking questions no one expected you to ask. They thought killing your son would break you enough to stay quiet.”

I felt that like a physical hit. My throat closed. Hard.

“Whoever planned that crash,” he continued, voice low, “they didn’t expect you to wake up. And now you have. And you’re looking for answers. They know the next bullet has to be aimed at you.”

He wasn’t trying to scare me. He was just stating facts.

My life was a crime scene someone kept trying to wipe clean.

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

Lucas leaned forward, eyes locked on mine. “We find who made the call. We find who paid the driver. And we find who killed him before they get to you.”

“And what if they already have a head start?”

His mouth curved, not in a smile, but that grim expression he wore whenever war was about to start.

“Then we take it back.”

A knock came at the door, sharp and urgent.

Lucas stood instantly. “What?”

His man stepped inside without waiting. “Sir, we traced the contact who reported the driver’s escape.”

“And?”

“He didn’t answer his phone.” A beat passed through.

“Because he’s dead too.”

The room went still.

My heart went dead quiet.

Lucas’s eyes cut to mine, fierce and protective in the same breath.

“It’s a cover-up,” I whispered. “No,” he said. “This is a massacre.”