The sun had gone down, and the sky had turned a shade darker. The gentle rain was heavier than before, limiting the number of pedestrians strolling the road with fewer cars.
Adeline walked by the side, clutching onto her dislocated wrist. It did help to keep her from getting too injured from the fall, but the pain was unbearable. Her bleeding head was no exception.
Looking back, she couldn't tell exactly how far she'd run, considering she'd cut a few turns to prevent them from catching up to her. But she was so out of breath that her vision was starting to become blurry as well.
She swerved past a few strangers moving away from her with confusion and worry in their gazes and came to a sudden stop.
Slowly, but steadily, she breathed.
"Am I going to die out here?" She chuckled softly, pushing herself and moving over to the other side of the wall, away from people's uncomfortable glances.
She took off her suit jacket and wrapped it around her swollen wrist.
Her face grimaced in pain, and she threw her head back, slipping down to sit on the wet ground.
She was helpless.
But then again, if she'd gone back to the Petrov mansion with them, who knew what they would have done to her? It could have been way worse, for all she knew.
She had no choice but to bite her lip and tear her skin in order to keep herself awake. However, that was not enough to help.
Her blood dripped little by little onto the floor, and she shut her eyes, slowly but eventually falling unconscious.
_________
"P-please, Tzar! Please forgive me," the man on all fours, with tears streaming profusely down his cheeks, begged, his fearful eyes gazing at someone.
"That's Mr. Kuznetsov for you, idiot!" Nikolai corrected, sending a vicious kick to the middle-aged man's stomach.
The man's short frame slammed against the wall, and he shakily sat up, pushing his body against it as if wanting to melt into the wall and run. He breathed loudly in fear and diverted his gaze to the silhouette, a bit farther away from him.
"Mr. Kuznetsov, please don't kill me. I'll do anything, anything you want. Please s-s-spare my life," he begged, the snot dripping from his nose staining his bloody shirt.
Seated on a wooden chair with his legs crossed, Caesar busily tapped his gloved fingers on the armrest of the seat while attentively watching him as though a wolf, monitoring its prey.
He lowered his cruel eyes and abruptly stood up from the chair, his hands falling to his sides.
"Step aside."
"But, sir-"
He threw Nikolai a single look that had him going silent instantly and approached the middle aged man to stand in front of him.
"Give me the pistol." He extended his hand out.
Nikolai handed the gun over to him and stepped back.
Caesar skillfully twirled the pistol with his finger and squatted down to be on the same eye level as the middle-aged man.
"Do you want to live this badly, Boris?" he asked, his eyes switching to a golden color.
The middle-aged man, Boris, was startled, his teeth chattering in fear. He frantically nodded his head, having peed his pants by now. "Yes, yes, I do! I'll ask for forgiveness, Tzar! Please just spare me. I'll do anything!"
Questioning why Caesar's eyes had changed was a luxury he didn't have. He could barely even secure his life at the moment.
Caesar's thoughtful gaze searched him thoroughly. "I see." He opened the magazine of the gun, adding a few bullets into it. "Answer a few of my questions, and I might consider letting you live."
"Don't gamble too much on it, though," he added.
"I'll do anything, I will give you any information you need." A glint of hope flashed in Boris's eyes regardless.
"Okay." Caesar shrugged, and his gaze shifted from the gun to his face. "Why did you sell our information to the Petrovs?"
"They offered to give me a hundred thousand rubles," Boris answered with haste.
"Hundred? For a piece of information?" Caesar pinched between his brows, chuckles bubbling up before he burst into full-blown laughter, humored by his confession. "And you gave it to them?"
Boris nodded, his hand quivering nervously.
Caesar cocked the gun, the smile on his face disappearing in an instant. "You betrayed me for a hundred thousand rubles, Boris?"
"Tzar, p-please forgive me. I didn't know what I was doing, I really didn't. I'll be better, and I will do whatever you want. Please don't kill me," Boris pleaded, blood rushing to his throat in fright.
Caesar stood up properly and blew on the tip of the pistol. "What did you think was going to happen when you betrayed me?" He took a glance at the gun, then at him, and arched an eyebrow.
Boris lifted his head, meeting his gaze. "Tzar, I don't understand. W-what do you-"
Caesar fired two shots, bursting his head and silencing him. He threw the pistol at Nikolai and began to adjust his gloves. "People such as him should not be kept around."
"Let's go," he said and began to exit the warehouse.
Nikolai ordered the rest of the men inside the warehouse to clean up the mess and hurried after him toward the car.
Caesar got into the car and whipped out his phone from his pocket. He looked at the screen, and his forehead wrinkled at the message he saw. "What happened with Rurik?"
Nikolai shook in his seat, cold sweats beginning to drip from his forehead. He responded, "The negotiation with him is going well, but he asked for a few days to properly think things over."
"This negotiation has been going on for two weeks now. Hasn't he thought enough?" Caesar's tone was filled with irritation.
Nikolai tightened his grip on the steering wheel as he took a turn, raising the speed of the car. "My apologies, sir. I'm not exactly sure what is going on, but I'll hold a meeting with him tomorrow."
Caesar scowled, averting his gaze to look out the window. "I won't accept anything going wrong. Keep that in mind," he warned.
"I will, sir."
He busily tapped his fingers on his thigh, saying, "If things don't work out with Rurik, that product won't be ours. You know how expensive it is and it's-" His pupils suddenly grew wide, and his nose twitched violently at the smell of a particular scent, causing him to sneeze.
He quickly glanced out the window, and at the sight of someone familiar—someone he felt like he'd seen somewhere before, he raised his hand at Nikolai.
"Stop the car right now!"
In fact, he might have just met this person a few hours ago.