Chapter 0312
Chapter 0312
+25 BONUS
Alexander POV
Ella’s signal never wavered. It was easy for me to follow, and while it was difficult to judge the passage of time in a situation like this, I knew it hadn’t taken long before I had the vehicle in my sights.
It was a small car–compact, unassuming, not even particularly expensive. The kind that would go unnoticed, blending into traffic without drawing attention.
The windows were tinted, concealing the inside. I had no way of knowing how many men were holding Ella or where she was seated. But I knew slie was in there. The signal confirmed it, and the absence of any other vehicles in the area made it obvious.
She was still in motion.
That meant she wasn’t being held in one of the scattered buildings nearby. Not that there were many structures around–just stretches of farmland, a few small houses, and weathered barns dotting the landscape.
I followed at a distance, weighing my options. I couldn’t do anything that might put Ella in greater danger, but hesitation wasn’t an option either. The longer I waited, the greater the risk.
The road ahead was clear and straight. No traffic. No movement in the fields.
There was no reason not to act.
I pressed my foot to the accelerator, and the car lurched forward, the engine roaring as I pushed it to full speed. It took the other driver a few seconds to react, but when he did, I couldn’t help but smile.
That little car wasn’t going to outrun me.
He was sure as hell going to try, though—which meant I needed to make this fast. The quicker I took him off the road, the lower the chance of Ella getting hurt.
Less than a minute later, I had overtaken him.
He tried to swerve away as I pulled alongside him, but the car jerked under his control for a moment. It wasn’t fear
-I recognized that–it was surprise.
Then, he slammed on the brakes, dropping behind me in an attempt to turn around.
I wasn’t about to let that happen.
Cutting across the field, I turned without slowing, closing the distance quickly and pulling up beside him again. I had to take a calculated risk to end this before it escalated.
Lining up my car with his, I turned the wheel sharply, slamming my bumper into his tire well.
His car spun off the road, plowing through a cornfield in a storm of dust and broken stalks before coming to a jarring halt.
I followed immediately, veering off the road and pulling up in front of him. Killing my engine, I stepped out.
We were on a service road–gravel, overgrown.
Good. That meant no one was likely to stumble upon this. No unexpected witnesses.
For a long, tense moment, the other vehicle remained still.
Then, the door swung open.
1/3
+25 BONUS
Chapter 0312
The driver stepped out–a large, burly man with a stern, scarred face.
A gun was in his hand. A small handgun–powerful, easily concealed.
He trained it on me.
I stared down the barrel, unfazed.
Unflinching.
He moved around the car, stopping near the trunk, and that’s when I saw it–the moment of recognition.
He went completely still.
So still I couldn’t even see the rise and fall of his chest.
Had he stopped breathing?
I was tempted to smirk, but I kept my expression cold, impassive.
Slowly, he lowered the gun.
Then, after a pause, he crouched down amd put the gun on the ground. With his hands raised in surrender as he straightened again.
That told me everything I needed to know.
He knew exactly who I was.
Ella POV
I listened from inside the trunk, trying to figure out what was happening. Silence stretched on for what felt like an eternity before I finally heard a voice—the voice of my kidnapper.
It was muffled, making it difficult to make out his words, but there was something in his tone that unsettled me. He didn’t sound nearly as confident as he had when he yelled at me earlier.
He wasn’t afraid, but there was an unease in his voice that couldn’t ignore.
Then, another voice responded.
It was further away, making it even harder to hear, but the moment I caught the sound of it, my breath hitched. At first, I thought I had to be mistaken. There was no way it could be Alexander’s voice.
I had known Alexander for a long time–been with him through nearly every imaginable situation. I knew the exact cadence of his voice, its depths and nuances. And this voice…it was similar, but it wasn’t him.
Still, I recognized it.
I had heard it before. It was burned into my memory, yet I couldn’t place where I knew it from.
I squeezed my eyes shut, slowing my breathing as much as could, focusing all my attention on trying to decipher the conversation.
“I didn’t know,” my kidnapper said, his voice tense, almost nervous.
Didn’t know?
That didn’t make sense. Surely, he had kidnapped me intentionally. It wasn’t as though he could have mistaken me for someone else. I strained to hear the response.
2/3
+25 BONUS
Chapter 0312
“I don’t care to hear your excuses,” the second voice said.
A chill ran through me.
That voice…
It was cold, controlled, and unmistakably familiar. And now that I had heard it more clearly, I knew for certain–I hadn’t been mistaken.
It was the same voice from the first time I was kidnapped. The voice of my rescuer.
A wave of unease rolled through me. My feelings toward this voice were complicated.
Whoever this man was, he had saved me more than once. But why the secrecy? Why hide his identity from me- unless he was someone I knew?
I had wondered about this before. I had caught glimpses of this tone slipping into Alexander’s voice, but I had always dismissed it.
Or maybe I had been in denial.
Because now, there was no mistaking it.
This was the voice of the man who had saved me and my mother.
And it was Alexander’s voice.
He was disguising it, but I knew him well enough now to recognize it for what it was.
Shock coursed through me. I had no idea how this was possible or what it meant. It only deepened the mystery surrounding Alexander, and on some level, that was deeply frustrating. But more than anything, it was a relief.
Alexander had come for me.
He hadn’t abandoned me.
No matter what this revelation meant in the long run, all that mattered right now was that he was here. He came when I needed him, as he always did.
I was going to be okay.
Outside the car, the voices continued, their tones sharp with tension. I still couldn’t make out the full conversation, only catching scattered words, but I could tell there was some kind of argument.
It almost sounded as if Alexander knew my kidnapper–and if that was the case, he was furious that the man had dared to do something like this.
Despite my relief, I remained on edge, wary of the possibility that my captor was only pretending to back down. But after a few more minutes of back–and–forth, I heard footsteps crunch across the gravel.
Then, the latch on the trunk released.
