Chapter 417
Chapter 417:
Inside the car, the explosion hit without warning — a tremendous, ground-shaking detonation that threw the surrounding vehicles into chaos. The cars that had been forming the perimeter were torn apart in an instant, the area transformed into a roaring wall of fire. People scrambled out of burning vehicles, desperate to clear the inferno before it swallowed them.
Colton’s car had been spared a direct hit, but the driver was so shaken that he tore off his seatbelt and stumbled out the door. The bodyguard in the front seat collected himself a half-second later and shouted back, “Mr. Yates — we need to get out now p>
Colton took in the burning wreckage with cold, calculating eyes. He grabbed Kristine and pulled her out with him.
Once outside, she could finally make sense of what had happened.
It wasn’t the cars themselves that had exploded — it was the tires. Small, precisely placed charges had blown them out, and the resulting sparks had caught the fuel. That was why everyone had made it out. Whoever had set this had calibrated it carefully.
𝖱e𝖺𝗱 t𝘩е 𝘭a𝘁еst 𝘵𝘳е𝘯𝗱ѕ 𝘰𝗻
Was this Asher’s doing?
Colton had already reached the same conclusion, and the realization twisted his expression into something raw with fury. He had ordered those vehicles to seal every exit, and now those same cars were blocking his own escape route.
“Get Bobby on the phone — I need a car here now!” he barked, dragging Kristine alongside him as he moved toward open ground.
Kristine watched the blaze, pulled in two directions. She despised being beside Colton. But she had no desire to die in a fire either. And she knew Asher — this level of precision, this specific kind of chaos, bore his signature. This was part of a plan.
As they walked, Colton said flatly, “Don’t sit there thinking Asher is coming for you p>
Kristine’s heart lurched. She looked at him, but his eyes were forward.
She felt a flare of irritation. How did he always seem to know exactly what she was thinking?
He let out a cold, short laugh. “Asher doesn’t care about you. If that fire had been any worse, you’d be dead right now p>
She looked back at the flames. They had grown since she’d stepped out of the car — massive, loud, reaching upward like something alive and furious. From inside the vehicle, she hadn’t grasped the scale of it. Now it looked enormous. Monstrous.
If the charges had been any larger, no one in that circle of cars would have survived.
The thought moved through her like ice water.
Colton felt her hand trembling. A dark smirk crossed his lips. “Scared? I warned you about Asher. He’s very good at looking harmless. You have no idea the kind of games he actually plays p>
Kristine pulled her hand free, her skin crawling.
She wasn’t going to stand there and listen to him talk about Asher that way. Yes, it had been dangerous — but Asher had been cornered. He would never deliberately put her in harm’s way, and she knew it in her bones.
She opened her mouth to say exactly that — and heard an engine.
Her first thought was Bobby, coming to collect them and end any chance she had left. If she got in that car willingly, it was over.