The Billion Dollar Contract のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 61 - チャプター 70

ADRIAN’S POVThe garden was beautiful in a way that made the whole situation obscene. White roses were everywhere, their scent heavy in the salt air blowing off the ocean, and the late afternoon sun turned everything golden and perfect like a scene from a magazine spread. Two hundred guests in designer clothes, champagne glasses catching the light, a string quartet playing something classical and elegant—it should have been romantic. Instead, it felt like attending my own funeral.I sat beside Elena in the third row, her hand cold in mine despite the warmth, both of us trying to look like we belonged among Alexei’s family and associates. Half the guests were legitimate—cousins from Russia, business partners who probably didn’t know what Alexei really did, society people from the Hamptons who saw him as just another wealthy immigrant success story. The other half I recognized from FBI files: killers in expensive suits, traffickers drinking champagne, men who’d made fortunes in blood a

ADRIAN’S POVThe first explosion came from the garden—not a bomb, but a flashbang that cracked with a deafening roar even through the office walls. Screaming followed immediately, a wave of human panic as the wedding dissolved. Alexei ran to the window, gun still in hand, and I saw his face twist as he took in the scene below: FBI agents swarming over the manicured hedges in tactical gear, rifles raised, searchlights cutting through the darkness like knives.His daughter's wedding had become a war zone."Get them to the basement!" he shouted at his guards, turning back to us. "Now! Move!"Hands grabbed me roughly, yanking me toward the door with bruising force. Elena stumbled beside me, her emerald dress tearing with a sickening rip as a guard gripped her arm. We were dragged into the hallway, footsteps pounding on hardwood, the sounds of chaos growing louder with each second. Helicopters roared overhead, the thrum of rotors shaking the windows in their frames, while loudspeakers boom

ELENA’S POVSunday, 8:47 AM.I woke to the sound of a key in the lock and sat up so fast the room spun, my heart hammering, my hand reaching for Adrian and finding empty sheets still warm from his body. The door opened and Adrian stepped through carrying plastic bags from a bodega, looking exhausted but alive.I exhaled for what felt like the first time since waking. "You left.""We need supplies. Food. Clothes." He set the bags on the small table. "And this." He pulled out a burner phone, the cheapest kind, still in the plastic packaging. "Paid cash. Untraceable."I nodded, my throat too tight to speak, still coming down from the terror of waking alone. He sat beside me on the sagging bed and pulled me close."I'm sorry. I should have left a note.""We don't have paper.""I should have woken you.""I wouldn't have let you go alone."We sat there for a moment, the morning light filtering through the thin curtains, illuminating the water stains on the ceiling and the general decay of o

ELENA’S POVWe found privacy in the most unlikely place: a Starbucks bathroom in Union Square. The door was locked, and the two of us were crammed into a space that smelled of cheap citrus air freshener trying desperately to mask the underlying scent of urine and desperation.I held Sarah Walsh’s business card, the cream-colored paper already creased from being gripped too tightly in my sweating hand.“We have to do it,” I said quietly.Adrian leaned against the sink, his face gaunt from a week of running, the dark circles under his eyes making him look ten years older than the man I’d married.“We don’t know her. She could be working with the FBI. With Alexei. Anyone.”“Or she could be exactly what she says. A reporter who can help us.”“By putting us in the spotlight? Making us even bigger targets?”Someone tried the door handle outside, rattling it impatiently before moving on. I flinched at the noise, my nerves shot. I looked at the card, at the simple black text, and thought abou

ELENA’S POVSarah dragged me through Brooklyn streets I didn’t recognize, her good arm around my waist, half-carrying me while blood dripped from her wounded shoulder onto the pavement in a macabre trail. I couldn’t feel my legs. Couldn’t feel anything except the terrible absence where Adrian had been. We reached an apartment building in Bed-Stuy, Sarah fumbling with keys, getting us inside and up three flights of stairs that I climbed without conscious thought.A colleague’s place, she muttered. Empty. Safe.Safe. The word meant nothing anymore.Inside, Sarah locked the door, threw the deadbolt, and wedged a chair under the handle. Then she collapsed against the wall, breathing hard, her shoulder a mess of blood and torn fabric.“Bathroom,” she gasped. “First aid kit. Under the sink.”I moved like a robot, finding the kit, bringing it to her. She worked on herself with shaking hands, cleaning the wound, the bullet having gone through without hitting bone. Lucky, she said.I sat on th