CHAPTER 7: COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Raymond’s lungs refused to expand.

The photograph on the black marble desk seemed to burn through the glossy paper, the image of Alisha’s smiling face a stark, agonizing contrast to the absolute darkness closing in on the room. Raymond’s knees remained pressed into the rug. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe.

“Why...” Raymond’s voice was barely a rasp, a broken sound scraped from the back of his throat. “Why... my sister?”

Ace didn't answer immediately. He turned smoothly on his heel and walked back toward the floor-to-ceiling glass, his long, dark silhouette cutting against the pale morning light. He slipped his hands back into his trousers pockets, looking out over the city as if the man groveling on his floor didn't exist.

“That’s not your concern,” Ace said calmly.

The sheer coldness of the response snapped something inside Raymond. The panic mutated into a desperate, reckless surge of protective instinct. He forced himself up from his knees, his hands clenching into trembling fists at his sides.

“No,” Raymond said, his voice shaking violently but carrying a sudden, frantic defiance. “No, I won't do it. You can strip my assets. You can ruin our name. But Alisha... Alisha has nothing to do with this. She doesn't even know what I do for the firm. She has nothing to do with your company!”

Ace didn't turn around. He didn't drop his head. He simply tilted his chin slightly, his quiet voice cutting through the space like a physical blade.

“Neither did my shipment.”

The words slammed into the room like a heavy iron gate. Raymond’s defiance evaporated instantly. His mouth hung open, a suffocating weight pressing down on his chest. Ace wasn't negotiating. He wasn't asking for permission. He was stating an equation. A half-billion-dollar asset had vanished on Raymond's watch, and Ace was simply seizing collateral of equal value to him.

Ace slowly turned around, his dark eyes fixing onto Raymond with an unyielding, predatory focus.

“You have exactly seventy-two hours,” Ace murmured smoothly, walking back toward the desk. He didn't look at the photograph as he closed the leather folder over Alisha’s face with a quiet, final thud. “If you locate and recover the cargo within the window, the marriage offer disappears. Your debt is cleared, and your sister remains entirely untouched.”

Raymond blinked, a desperate, pathetic ray of hope piercing through his terror. A chance. I still have a chance.

“And if I fail?” Raymond whispered.

Ace looked at him, his expression completely void of human emotion.

“Then seventy-two hours from this exact minute, Alisha becomes my wife.”

The private executive elevator ride down was a blur of flashing numbers and deafening silence.

When Raymond finally stumbled out through the grand marble lobby of Romano Tower and into the gray morning air, he could barely keep his balance. His tailor-made suit felt like a lead weight pressing into his skin. He didn't look up at the six-foot brushed steel letters bearing the Romano name above the entrance. He couldn't bear to look at the monolith that had just systematically dismantled his entire life.

He got into his sedan, his hands shaking so violently he dropped his keys onto the floor mat twice before finally turning the ignition.

Seventy-two hours.

The clock was already ticking. Every second that passed was a second closer to delivering his sister into the hands of a monster.

“I can fix this,” Raymond muttered to himself, his voice sounding crazed in the quiet cabin of the car. He slammed his palm against the leather steering wheel, trying to beat the paralysis out of his limbs. “I can find it. I have to find it.”

He pulled out his phone, his thumb flying across the screen with frantic, erratic movements. He didn't care about corporate protocols anymore. He didn't care about security firewalls. He began dialing every back-alley contact, every black-market logistics coordinator, and every high-level customs informant he had spent the last five years paying off.

“Pick up, damn it, pick up,” he hissed, pressing the phone to his ear as he pulled out into the crawling city traffic.

Line busy.

He dialed another. It went straight to voicemail.

He dialed a third—a high-ranking security chief in the southern sector. The line rang once, twice, three times, before finally cutting out. Raymond’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped animal. He was bleeding time. The city traffic moved like sludge around him, red brake lights stretching out into the fog, mocking his desperation.

He was breathing in short, ragged gasps, his brain firing in a hundred different directions, trying to map out every warehouse, every high-tech tracking array, every blind spot in the grid where a half-billion-dollar shipment could be hidden.

I just need one lead. Just one name.

Suddenly, the screen of his phone cut off his outgoing call, vibrating violently as an incoming number overrode the display.

Raymond flinched, his eyes darting down to the screen. It wasn't an unknown number this time. It was a local prefix.

His thumb swiped the glass automatically, pressing the phone to his ear before his brain could even process the move. “Hello? Have you found something? Tell me you have a lead—”

“Is this Mr. Raymond Hart?” a voice interrupted.

The tone was crisp, dry, and thoroughly institutional. It wasn't the voice of a black-market informant or a panicked logistics manager.

Raymond froze, his foot hovering over the accelerator as the traffic crawled forward. “...Yes. This is Raymond. Who is this?”

“Mr. Hart, this is Officer Davis with the Central Metropolitan Police Department,” the voice stated flatly. “We’re calling regarding your sister, Alisha Hart.”

A sudden, nervous smile broke across Raymond’s face. A heavy breath escaped his lips, a hollow laugh bubbling up in his chest. Of course. It had to be a mistake. A minor traffic incident. A fender bender in the morning fog. Alisha was a schoolteacher; she didn't get calls from the police.

“Oh... Officer,” Raymond said, his voice cracking with a mixture of exhaustion and relief. “Yes, that's my sister. Look, whatever happened, I can take care of it. If there’s a fine or a citation, just send it to my office, I’ll have my legal team handle the insurance immediately—”

“Mr. Hart,” the officer cut him off, his tone dropping into something much heavier, entirely devoid of warmth. “You misunderstand. She hasn't been in an accident.”

The nervous smile died on Raymond’s face.

“She’s been arrested.”

Raymond’s foot slipped from the brake.

The sedan lurched forward before he slammed the pedal again.

Silence slammed down inside the vehicle, thick and suffocating.

“Your sister is currently in custody at the central holding facility,” Officer Davis said, his voice entirely professional and completely unyielding. “You need to come down here immediately.”

The line went dead.

Raymond slowly lowered the phone from his ear.

The traffic around him continued to move. Horns blared. Pedestrians crossed the street. The city carried on as though nothing had happened.

But Raymond’s world had just ended.

He had seventy-two hours to save his sister… and she had already been taken from him.