Chapter 262: Chapter 265

Chapter 265 Audrey The blade pressed against Betty’s throat looked like it was a mere twitch away from piercing her skin. Her eyes were wide, terrified, her breathing heavy around the gag in her mouth.

One wrong move and... I couldn’t even finish the thought.

Beside me, Peter’s entire body tensed. “Bastard,” he hissed, not even deigning to glance at Mr. Black. Peter moved to take a step forward, but the guard just tightened his grip around Betty’s neck, that knife poised to strike.

“Ah ah ah,” Black said coolly, waggling his thick finger at Peter. “Nobody makes a move. Unless you want your friend to die.”

Edwin and I spared a glance at one another, silently agreeing to obey–for now, at least. We both took a small step back. Edwin grabbed Peter’s arm, pulling him along with him. Peter begrudgingly moved, if only for Betty’s sake.

Only then did the guard relax his grip ever so slightly.

“You know,” Black began, rising from his desk and adjusting his cufflinks as if we were having a standard business meeting, “I had everything before you two showed up.” He straightened his tie and sighed. “Everything.”

He didn’t look at me, didn’t even acknowledge me directly. His focus was all on Edwin.

“My business was thriving. I had respect. Power. And then, you decided to rip the rug out from under me for the sake of one girl ten years your junior.” He shook his head, clicking his tongue. “Disgusting, Edwin. Truly.”

“That’s rich coming from you, who tried to get her to sleep with you in exchange for a bloody mentorship, old man,” Edwin snarled.

Black chuckled and waved his hand dismissively. “Perhaps. But did I deserve to go bankrupt for it? I think not.

“And when my company finally went under,” Black continued, “your brother–Axel–came along. Promised me more. He promised that if I just kept Audrey down, if I just gave her a little nudge into his arms, that I’d take over Brooks Designs.”

Black’s eyes narrowed slightly, flicking toward me for just a fraction of a second. It all made sense now–the thesis presentation.

Black wanted me to fail, wanted me to fall into misery. He thought it would make me more pliable and easily manipulated.

“But of course, that fell apart too,” he sighed. “Shame on me for trusting another Brooks bastard.”

“So you started this?” I gestured angrily toward the warehouse floor below, where the machines kept whirring nonstop.

Production had to continue, of course. “Enslaving children?”

Black’s face twisted into something almost prideful. “Nightfall Threads. It has a ring to it, doesn’t it? Just trendy enough to garner the attention of stupid teenagers.” He spread his arms, his smile growing. “I built it from nothing. And now look at it. The profit margins are spectacular when you don’t have to pay your workers.”

I could barely hold myself back. It was taking everything in me not to charge across the room and claw that smile right off his face.

He looked at Betty again, his gaze cold and calculated, his fingers tracing along her jaw. She whimpered, the knife pressing closer to her skin. Peter growled deeply, his own rage simmering just below the surface.

“And I won’t let you take this from me too,” Black finished. “Not gain.”

“Money isn’t everything,” Edwin spat, his voice shaking with fury “You’re destroying lives. These are children, for Goddess‘ sake-

“Oh, spare me the moral outrage, Edwin.” Black rolled his eyes, his hand falling away from Betty’s trembling face. “Brooks Designs is no stranger to underpaid labor. This is a capitalist society, after all. We have to do whatever we can to get ahead.”

Black’s smile widened as he nodded to someone behind us, and the sound of footsteps filled the room. I turned, my stomach tightening. Six guards, all of them armed with those batons.

Batons which were now crackling with electricity.

Cattle prods.

“Take them,” Black ordered calmly, stepping back from his desk. His attention turned to Betty, his eyes gleaming. “This one though... I think I’ll keep her. A little insurance policy.”

The guard holding Betty’s throat pressed the knife just a little closer, and I could see the faintest trickle of blood begin to bead against the blade’s edge. My vision tunneled, anger and fear surging through me.

“Don’t touch her,” Peter snarled, stepping forward instinctively. Rough hands grabbed him from behind, yanking him away. He struggled against the grip, but the guard’s hold was firm, forcing his arms behind his back.

Beside him, Edwin and I fought just as fiercely, our bodies straining as three more guards wrestled us back.

I fumbled for the button on the cattle prod to make the electricity flicker to life, but I was suddenly kicked in the hand by a steel–

toed boot, crunching my pinky finger like butter. Without thinking, I yelped and dropped it. My pinky was broken.

“You know what your problem is?” Black said, his voice a little too casual as he strolled toward the door. “You think you can save everyone. But sometimes...” He paused, his smile growing wider. And this time, he looked at me. Only me.

“Sometimes, the bad guys win,” he whispered, his hot breath fanning across my ear.

With a snap of Black’s fingers, the guards began pulling us toward the exit, ignoring our snarls and shouts. I saw Edwin and Peter begin to shift, but they were quickly cut off by harsh jabs with the cattle prods, the electricity sending them to the ground.

From across the room, I caught Betty’s eyes–wide, terrified. But there was something else there too. A spark of understanding.

Now, her eyes seemed to say.

“It’s true what they say, harder they fall.”

I called out, enunciating every word, locking my gaze with Betty’s. “The bigger they are, the Betty’s eyes widened. The signal–the one that we had discussed earlier, before our plan had set into place. Right before I gave her a small knife with a silver blade.

And Betty di hesitate. She moved like lightning, faster than I’d ever seen her move. The knife she’d kept hidden in her pocket glinted as she drove it into her captor’s thigh with a brutal shriek.

The man screamed, dropping his own blade and releasing her. In the next heartbeat, chaos erupted Edwin was the first to act. He threw his head back into his guards face with a sickening crack, breaking the man’s nose and sending him reeling. Peter spun in place, his elbow slamming into his attacker’s jaw while his other hand grabbed a cattle prod and jammed it into the ribs of another guard.

I twisted, kicking out at the guard behind me, sending him crashing to the floor. My hand ached with the sensation of my broken bone, but I kept going, ignoring that pain. It would heal soon enough, Soon enough, as more guards flooded into the room, the air became filled with the sound of fists meeting flesh, bodies hitting the flour, cattle prods crackling and guards shouting.

But my gaze was focused on one single body moving somewhere amongst the blur.

Black.

I saw him stumbling clumsily toward the door, frantically trying to avoid the fighting. Edwin and I dropped to a crouch between two guards that were lunging for us, causing them to slam headfirst into one another and collapse backwards. Our eyes locked, and he gave me a firm nod.

We knew what we had to do.