21: The Pressure Cooker

The screech of federal sirens cut through the damp Menteng air like a jagged blade, instantly shattering the suffocating silence of the abandoned railway depot. Red and blue strobe lights painted the rusted corrugated walls in a frantic, dizzying dance, reflecting off the pools of stagnant rainwater scattered across the concrete floor.

Galen didn't blink. His dark eyes remained locked on the space where Julian had just vanished into the shadows, the phantom echo of the man's voice still ringing in his skull. Your first husband. Nurin was my wife.

"Galen, wait, let me—" Nurin’s voice broke, a desperate, shuddering gasp as she reached out, her trembling fingers catching the fabric of his jacket.

Galen yanked his arm away as if her touch had burned him. The motion was sharp, instinctual, and entirely devoid of the warmth that had bound them together just hours ago. He turned his head slowly, looking down at her. The woman who had stood beside him in the boardroom, the woman who had pulled the breaker on Haris's trap, suddenly looked like a stranger wearing a familiar face.

"Don't," Galen whispered, his voice dangerously low, stripped of all inflection. "Don't say a single word until we get back to the car."

Heavy boots crunched against the gravel outside the hangar doors, accompanied by shouted orders and the unmistakable clack of tactical rifles being unholstered.

"Federal agents! Clear the perimeter!" Inspector Santoso’s voice boomed through a megaphone, cutting through the chaos as a squad of armed officers flooded the depot, flashlights sweeping wildly across the rusted railcars.

"Clear! Sector 4 is secure!" an officer yelled back, spotting Galen and Nurin standing amidst the shadows.

Santoso pushed his way through the cluster of tactical gear, his weathered face pinched with frustration as he spotted Galen standing rigid, his Sig Sauer still clutched tightly in his hand. He took in the taut, frozen posture between Galen and Nurin, his eyes narrowing.

"Prakoso. What the hell is going on here?" Santoso demanded, walking up and glancing around the empty hangar. "Dispatch got an anonymous tip routed straight from an internal corporate IP address claiming a high-value fugitive was meeting you here. Where is he?"

"He's gone," Galen said flatly, sliding his gun back into its holster with a crisp, final click. His jaw was locked so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek. "The tip was real. But your team was two minutes too slow."

"Who was it?" Santoso pressed, stepping closer. "Haris's second-in-command?"

"No," Galen replied, his voice dropping into a dangerous, chilling monotone that made even the seasoned inspector hesitate. "A ghost. Come on, Bagas is waiting in the SUV."

Without waiting for Santoso to reply, Galen turned on his heel and marched out of the depot, his broad shoulders squared against the harsh glare of the police cruisers. He didn't look back to see if Nurin was following. He just walked, his boots crushing the gravel beneath him, the pressure cooker in his chest threatening to blow its welds.

Nurin stood frozen for a second, the cold wind whipping her hair across her face, before she forced her legs to move, hurrying to catch up to him before he reached the vehicle.

By the time they reached the armored SUV, Bagas was already out of the driver's seat, holding the door open with a confused, anxious frown furrowing his brow.

"Boss? What happened inside? We monitored the police comms—they said a second suspect was spotted fleeing out the back drainage tunnel—" Bagas started, stopping dead as he caught the look on Galen's face.

"Shut the door, Bagas," Galen snapped, sliding into the back seat without a word of explanation.

Nurin slid in right behind him, pulling the heavy door shut with a muffled thud. The interior of the SUV felt smaller than usual, the air thick and heavy with unsaid accusations. Bagas scrambled back into the driver's seat, sharing a nervous, questioning glance with Nurin through the rearview mirror, but the heavy silence from the back seat kept him from asking any more questions. He put the vehicle in drive and pulled away from the depot, merging seamlessly into the empty highway lanes leading back toward the city.

The ride back to the penthouse was a masterclass in psychological torture. Twenty minutes of absolute, unbroken quiet, save for the hum of the engine and the rhythmic sweep of the windshield wipers.

When Bagas finally pulled the SUV into the subterranean parking garage of Prakoso-Qistina Holdings, Galen didn't wait for him to kill the engine. He shoved his door open, stepped out into the concrete garage, and strode toward the private elevator without slowing his pace.

"Galen, please—" Nurin called out, hurrying out of the vehicle and jogging across the concrete to keep up with his long strides. "Let me explain! It’s not what you think!"

"You said that about the debt," Galen shot back, his voice slicing through the empty garage as he jammed his platinum keycard into the elevator terminal. "You said that about the fire, you said that about the offshore accounts, and you said it about Haris."

The elevator doors slid open with a sharp ding. Galen stepped inside, his dark eyes fixing her with a look so cold, so entirely devoid of emotion, that Nurin physically recoiled.

"Get in," he commanded.

She stepped inside, the doors sliding shut immediately and sealing them in the small, mirrored box as it rocketed upward toward the penthouse.

"Julian isn't dead," Nurin started the second the car began to move, her hands trembling as she clutched the lapel of her jacket. Her voice was frantic, desperate, spilling over itself in a rush of panic. "When my father’s company collapsed, Julian was the only one offering a lifeline. He wasn't just a buyer, Galen—he was a loan shark operating under a corporate front. I married him to protect Mikhail. It was a paper marriage, a trap to get my brother out of his custody."

Galen stared straight ahead at the digital floor numbers ticking upward: 22, 28, 35... He didn't say a word. He didn't even look at her.

"And the boat accident?" Nurin continued, her voice cracking as tears spilled over her lashes. "It was real! The yacht sank off the Sunda Strait during a storm. The coast guard recovered wreckage. I honestly believed he was dead, Galen! I went to his funeral. I mourned him. I was free..."

"Except he wasn't dead," Galen interrupted, his voice terrifyingly calm as the elevator finally slowed and came to a halt at the forty-fifth floor.

The doors glided open to reveal the sprawling, dimly lit penthouse.

Galen stepped out into the living room, walking straight to the massive mahogany bar against the far wall. He didn't turn on the overhead lights; he just reached for a heavy crystal tumbler and poured a generous measure of neat scotch, tossing it back in a single, burning swallow.

Nurin followed him out of the elevator, stopping a few feet away, looking like a soldier facing a firing squad. "Julian must have survived. He must have used the wreck to fake his own disappearance so he could crawl back into Haris’s shadow and orchestrate this whole thing from behind the scenes. He wants to destroy us, Galen. He wants to take everything we built."

Galen set the crystal glass down on the bar with a sharp clack. He turned around slowly, leaning his hips against the counter, his dark eyes boring into hers.

"He doesn't want to destroy us, Nurin," Galen said, his voice dropping into a harsh, bitter whisper. "He wants to destroy you. And he’s using the fact that you’re still legally my wife—and legally his—to blow this entire corporation straight out of the water."

"We can annul the first marriage," she pleaded, taking a step toward him, her hands outstretched. "We can prove he abandoned jurisdiction, we can—"

"We can't do a damn thing until the feds verify his identity," Galen snapped, pushing off the bar and walking right up to her. He didn't touch her, but the sheer wall of his presence was suffocating. "Because the moment Julian walks into a courtroom with a valid marriage certificate dated three years before ours, every single corporate asset, every property deed, and every merger agreement we signed this week becomes legally contested property."

Nurin’s breath hitched. "You think I planned this? You think I knew he was alive?"

"I don't know what to think anymore, Nurin," Galen said, the raw, brutal honesty of his words cutting deeper than any insult. "Every time I think I finally reached the bottom of your lies, I find another trapdoor. How many more husbands do you have stashed away in the dark? How many more secrets are waiting for the next deadline?"

The words hung in the air between them, sharp and jagged, tearing away whatever fragile trust they had managed to salvage from the warehouse fire.

Nurin stared at him, her chest heaving, the color entirely draining from her face. The fight—the fierce, brilliant defiance that had carried her through every corporate war—finally snapped. She didn't yell back. She didn't construct a defense. She just looked at him, her eyes wide and hollow, as the pressure cooker finally blew its lid.

"Is that really what you see when you look at me?" she whispered, her voice barely a breath. "A liar waiting to spring the next trap?"

Galen turned away, walking toward the floor-to-ceiling windows to stare out at the indifferent, neon-lit skyline of Jakarta. He didn't answer.

And in the heavy, suffocating silence of the penthouse, his silence was the loudest answer of all.