Chapter 72: I should marry you
Once that first, awful impact had landed, April had simply lost her mind. Screaming and sobbing hysterically, she slammed the brick down over and over and over again, her chest heaving, her hands coated in black, foul fluid until the skull was nothing but a black grotesque puddle, mixed with rotten flesh, brain matter and eyeballs.
After that first time, it had become easier to kill. The survival instinct took over, and the guilt gradually numbed into nothingness.
But that first moment was a nightmare she had barely survived, hiding away in a dark closet for hours, her limbs shaking uncontrollably before she ever found the courage to face another monster.
Everytime she looked at her hand, she was reminded of how she was very close to death’s door. Every time she saw blood, she was reminded of the grotesque puddle.
She threw up a few times, and it wasn’t like there was anything in her stomach to begin with. It was hell.
By the time April’s consciousness snapped back to the present reality of the warehouse, the screaming had stopped.
Leo was nothing more than an unidentified, bloody mess on the concrete floor. His limbs were deformed at unnatural angles, and bright red of his blood was splattered across the gravel.
He was technically still breathing, his chest making a faint, wet rattling sound, but he no longer looked human.
In April’s cold estimation, even the zombies looked better than what was left of him.
"Feed him to the dogs," Nat commanded flatly, tossing the bloody iron bat back to his enforcer without a hint of emotion.
The subordinates immediately moved, dragging a heavy canvas sack over the mangled body before hauling it away, leaving a dark, smeary trail across the floor.
Nat slowly turned around to face April.
Internally, his warped, calculating mind had fully expected to finally see her breaking. He had assumed that even if she was a fascinating mirror of his own greed, a sheltered young woman from the city elite would be shivering, pale, or vomiting after witnessing the raw, unfiltered violence of the underground.
But to his absolute surprise, she simply sat there. Her sharp, dark eyes were fixed on the pool of fresh blood, completely devoid of horror.
Another sudden, violent shudder of pure excitement shot straight down Nat’s spine. He walked toward her, his heavy boots slamming in the quiet space until he loomed directly over her.
"You..." Nat whispered, his voice incredibly gruff, his dark eyes wide and fanatic as he stared down at her. A few stray streaks of Leo’s blood were splattered across his chiseled jawline. "You’ve killed before, haven’t you?"
April snapped her head up, her icy gaze locking onto his face, completely cutting off his attempt to pry into her past.
She had no intention of answering a question that belonged to a timeline he didn’t even know existed.
"Get rid of the blood," she muttered, her tone sharp and clinical. "It’s a bad omen for business."
Nat stared at her for a beat, completely stunned by her priorities, before he burst into a rich, booming laugh that vibrated through his chest.
"I really like you," he chuckled, leaning down slightly, his wild aura pressing against hers. "Maybe I should just marry you."
April’s shoulders subtly flinched—a tiny, instinctive reaction to the sheer absurdity of his words. But she recovered instantly, masking the sudden movement by gracefully crossing her legs and leaning back against her chair with an unbothered expression.
"How can you get married to me," April brushed it off smoothly, her voice dripping with a cool, mocking irony, "when you’re already legally wed to your wealth, Mr. Collins?"
Nat chuckled deeply, the sound rumbling low in his chest as he wiped a stray streak of blood from his jaw with the back of his hand. He didn’t seem the least bit offended by her deflection; if anything, her response only seemed to delight him more.
"Legally wed to wealth, huh?" he mused, his lips pulling into a sharp, lopsided grin as he stepped back to give her some breathing room. "You aren’t wrong. Cash is a hell of a lot more reliable than people. It doesn’t lie, it doesn’t try to fake its own death on a smuggling run, and it always goes exactly where I tell it to go."
He waved a dismissive hand toward his remaining men, who were already hurrying over with buckets of harsh chemical bleach and heavy mops to scrub the stained concrete.
The sharp, acrid scent of industrial cleaner immediately began to battle the metallic tang of blood in the air.
"But you," Nat continued, his dark, chaotic eyes locking onto her with an intensity that could make a lesser person’s skin crawl. "You’re a different story. You’re the first thing I’ve found that actually generates wealth out of thin air. That makes you better than any stock, any shadow corporation, or any black-market route I own. So if I have you, I believe my wealth will understand why I’m being a cheat."
He is so full of it sometimes. She thought.
April watched the subordinates systematically erase the evidence of Leo’s existence from the floor.
Her mind was already shifting back to her primary objectives. She had secured her 200 million dollars, stabilized her position with her number three cash cow, and ensured his syndicate network remained intact for her future hoarding needs.
It seemed like she was done here.
"If we are quite finished with the theatrics, Mr. Collins," April said, standing up smoothly from the iron chair and brushing an imaginary speck of dust from her shoulder. "I believe our transaction for the evening is officially complete. I have a schedule to maintain, and as we agreed, I choose to keep my freedom."
Turning on her heel, April began to walk fearlessly toward the exit, leaving the blood-stained dragon behind.
But she didn’t get very far before the heavy, rhythmic thud of combat boots echoed behind her.
Nat was following her. He reached into his vest pocket, pulling out a sleek black handkerchief to wipe the remaining streaks of blood from his face, his movements lazy but deliberate.
April stopped just before the massive sliding warehouse doors, snapping her head back to look at him, her eyebrows pinching together. "What?"
Nat lowered the handkerchief, his lips curving into a smug, knowing grin as he put on a pair of dark sunglasses. "What what? How exactly do you plan on getting out of here, little seer? Take a look outside."
April looked at him. Why was he wearing dark sunglasses when it was already getting dark outside? Ah, right, she couldn’t equate him with normal people.
She glanced through the small, cracked windowpane of the exit door. Outside, the sun was dipping below the horizon, casting an eerie orange glow over miles of desolate, abandoned industrial wasteland, jagged overgrown weeds, and cracked grounds.
There wasn’t a main road or a civilian vehicle in sight for miles. It truly was the absolute middle of nowhere.
"Unless you’ve got a supernatural teleportation skill tucked away in that glowing orb of yours," Nat shrugged, twirling his car keys around his index finger with a metallic clink, "you’re going to be walking until midnight. So, I’ll drive ya."
