Chapter 65: The Spark Before the Fire
Right on cue, a sharp vibration broke the heavy tension in the room. Nat’s personal phone was buzzing in his pocket.
He frowned, pulling out the device and glancing at the screen. He glared at April one last time, then stood up, stepping a few paces away toward the darker side of the warehouse to take the brief, urgent call.
The very second his back turned, April closed her eyes.
In a fraction of a second, her consciousness slipped away from the damp warehouse, arriving safely inside the quiet space of her comfy Spatial Dimension.
The moment her feet touched the floor of her safe haven, April let out a massive, ragged sigh of relief, her shoulders finally dropping. She had acted incredibly tough out there, but god, that man had a genuinely lethal, terrifying stare.
Her heart was hammering violently against her ribs now that she was momentarily out of his line of sight.
But she didn’t have a single second to waste. If she stayed inside the space for more than a few moments, Nat would return, notice her completely vacant expression, and immediately suspect a trick.
Hurrying to the corner of her storage area, April snatched her titanium pro that was just lying there. Her fingers flew across the screen quickly as she pulled up Xavier’s contact, immediately sending him a text message.
[April]: Mr. Reed. Don’t waste your resources looking for me right now; I am handling the situation. But you need to listen to me very carefully. You need to pull all of your active capital out of the main tech and energy stocks immediately. A massive, catastrophic market crash is hitting by this evening. Do it right now. We will settle my payment for this later.
She didn’t bother waiting for a reply. She knew Xavier would be completely shell-shocked to receive a text from her while she was supposed to be a kidnapped hostage.
He would frantically want to know her location—as if she even knew what hidden, decrepit hole in the ground Nat Collins had dragged her to. But she didn’t need rescuing. This was a game she was playing, and she intended to win.
April took one deep, centering breath to restore her unbothered composure and then opened her eyes in the real world just as Nat hung up his phone and turned back around.
"I’ve never heard of a stock rising crazily in one night and then crashing the exact same way the next evening," he said, his voice flat.
April smiled. "Well, it’s going to happen, and you’re going to have a front-row seat to watch it when it does. But whether you’re watching with bated breath not knowing what will happen, or you’re watching with ease, putting full faith in my prediction, is all up to you. But I’ll have you know that my predictions have never been wrong. You can tell by how Robert Greels and Alexander Greels are currently on the news, unharmed, while Harvey Greels is out of his mind trying to secure me."
She took a pointed look at his phone. "You can do your research, but you don’t have much time to sell, so do not dilly-dally."
Nat went quiet. He had just been on the phone with Harvey Greels, and the desperate man had been barking orders on the other end. Nat had just let him speak until he was done and then cut the call.
There was indeed a reason why someone who was already hitting rock bottom was so bent on getting this woman, even at the expense of all his remaining wealth. It was because they had absolute confidence in her abilities.
Nat suddenly began to laugh. It was a wild, chaotic laughter as he realized he was about to make the most dangerous decision of his life. But it was fine; he liked danger, and he absolutely thrived in it.
The veins on his neck bulged as his laughter became maddening, and he glared at April. Alright, I’ll sell. But if this is a scheme to get me to sell my stocks when I could’ve had more, and the market doesn’t crash... I will be feeding your body to my dogs.
Without words, April could sense his pure malice, as if it were written across his face. But she knew he had made a decision.
She merely smiled. "You won’t regret it, Mr. Collins."
She got up from the cold iron chair, stretching her legs as she stood before him, her stature small in comparison to his towering build. "I hope we have a pleasant deal going forward."
She raised her hand to shake his. Nat took it, his grip firm, almost crushing like a threat as to how he would break her once she screwed up.
His eyes were bloodshot with a manic intensity, but he was ready to watch the fireworks go kaboom.
Until then, she was going to be under his watch.
The moment her prediction went wrong, and he realized he had made a mistake, she would need to be ready to say goodbye—because no one toyed with Nat Collins and lived to tell the tale.
Meanwhile, inside the office of Reed Industries, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
Xavier Reed stood motionless by the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring down at his phone with a dark, unreadable expression. His grip on the device was tight enough to turn his knuckles white.
On the screen, a string of urgent, unreplied messages hung in the chat.
[Xavier]: Miss April, where are you?
[Xavier]: Can you give me a location?
[Xavier]: Miss April, answer me.
But there was still no response.
The moment he saw her message, he felt an immense wave of relief, but the things she sent went SOS; they were readings he didn’t even ask for.
He tried to reach out, worried, but these messages remained unanswered. He didn’t dare call. If she was in hiding, or worse, if she was operating under the nose of the golden dragon, a sudden ringtone or vibration could completely compromise her position and cost her her life.
Usually, it was insane to trust a sudden, contextless text message from a missing hostage—especially one demanding the immediate liquidation of billions in active capital.
But April wasn’t a normal woman. She was a seer who had yet to be proven wrong.
Xavier let out a low, breathy exhale, turning away from the window. The sheer absurdity of the situation weighed heavily on him, but he knew what he had to do. The best—and only—thing he could do right now was trust her blindly and follow her instructions to the end.
He turned his sharp gaze toward Samuel, who was already standing strictly by his side, his face pale but expression grimly alert.
Samuel had been searching the city’s cameras for hours, burning with a quiet, lethal guilt over letting April get snatched right under his nose.
"Samuel," Xavier commanded, his voice cutting through the heavy silence of the office like ice. "Stop the tracking teams for now."
Samuel stiffened, looking at his boss in confusion. "Sir?"
"We are pulling out since we have more pressing matters," Xavier stated flatly, tossing his phone onto the desk. "Instruct the financial department to liquidate all of our active capital out of the main tech and energy stocks immediately. Every single cent. I want Reed Industries completely converted to liquid cash before the closing bell."
Samuel’s eyes widened in rare, genuine shock. "Sir, tech and energy are our highest-performing sectors right now. Pulling out so abruptly will cost us millions in early exit fees, not to mention the market confusion it will cause—"
"Do it," Xavier interrupted, his tone leaving absolutely no room for negotiation. "Miss April reached out to me just now, but instead of asking for help, she sent a warning. A catastrophic market crash is hitting by this evening. We don’t have time to dilly-dally."
Samuel froze, the gravity of the statement hitting him instantly. If April said a crash was coming, then a crash was coming. But how was she able to get a message across under the golden dragon’s nose? Then... this meant she was safe, right?
He wanted to believe that she was not harmed at all, and that she had instead strung a dangerous man like that to be one of her clients with her special abilities. He truly wanted to believe it.
Without another word of protest, Samuel straightened his suit. "Understood, Mr. Reed. I will execute the orders personally."
As Samuel turned and hurried out of the office to mobilize the financial team, Xavier walked back to the window, looking out over the sprawling city skyline. The storm was coming, and thanks to a single text, Reed Industries was about to watch it from a safe harbor.
