Chapter 98: Karma at Work
Xavier didn’t laugh. He simply turned his handsome face away, his jaw tightening as he pinched the bridge of his nose in deep exhaustion.
The raw intensity of April’s apocalyptic breakdown had been completely and abruptly shattered by the sheer, unglamorous reality of human biology.
Samuel, ever the professional pillar, didn’t even blink. He calmly adjusted his glasses with a single finger by the bridge, his expression perfectly clinical as he looked at the disaster zone.
"I shall secure the private cleaning staff," Samuel stated smoothly, stepping around a completely paralyzed Nat without a single shred of hesitation. "And I will have the vehicle’s air conditioning prepped for a biohazard transit. Just in case." He seemed unbothered, but in his mind, he was striking evilly. You deserve worse, you kidnapping bastard.
With that, he turned on his heel and marched out of the lounge, leaving the three titans to manage the aftermath.
April let out a weak, pathetic groan, her forehead resting heavily against Nat’s shoulder blade as her body limply sagged over his back.
The violent purge had instantly cleared a massive portion of the alcohol from her system, dragging her consciousness out of the terrifying, ash-covered wasteland and slamming her right back into reality. Her head throbbed like a ticking time bomb.
"Ugh..." she mumbled, her voice entirely flat and devoid of its previous theatrical rage. "The toxicity... have reached critical failure."
"You think?!" Nat roared, his deep voice rattling through the small space as he finally broke out of his stupor.
He didn’t drop her, though. Despite the absolute ruin of his pristine white shirt and trousers, his massive hands remained firmly locked around her waist, ensuring she didn’t tumble onto the floor.
He aggressively hoisted her off his shoulder, turning her around and setting her bare feet back onto the marble floor. He held her steady by her arms, his face completely contorted in a mix of fury, disgust, and a strange, lingering trace of that intense concern from moments before.
"You’re a menace, little seer," Nat hissed, looking down at his ruined jacket before glaring into her glassy, unfocused eyes. "A literal, walkin’ natural disaster. I buy you a two-billion-dollar fortress, and you repay me by turning my favorite suit into a trash bin?"
April blinked sleepily up at him, her messy brown hair falling over her face as she gave a weak, incredibly stubborn hiccup. "Consider it... Karma at work, Mr. Collins. Your reflexes... are impressive. But your placement... lacks foresight."
"Unbelievable," Nat muttered, a sharp, genuinely amused chuckle suddenly breaking through his irritation.
He shook his head, unbuttoning the ruined white with his teeth gritted and tossing it carelessly onto the floor, exposing his bare body and she blinked. He was so ripped. The muscles were so thick too.
"You’re lucky you’re in my good books, sweetheart. Anyone else would be licking up the vormit from the floor and then find themselves floating the harbor by sunrise." He explained but April felt she didn’t need to know all that detail.
Xavier stood up from the cushions, his tall frame cutting through the lingering stench of the booth.
He ignored Nat entirely, stepping directly to April’s side and sliding an arm around her waist to take her weight from the mob boss.
The scent of clean cedar and expensive cologne, as well as bourbon and scotch radiating from his own white shirt enveloped her, and thankfully, it did not aggravate her spinning mind any further.
"She has completely exceeded her limits," Xavier stated flatly, his dark eyes locking onto Nat with an iron-clad finality. "We are returning to the estate."
Alexander scrambled out of the booth, hastily grabbing April’s discarded two-inch block heels from under the table and holding them out like a prize. "Here! I’ve secured the footwear! Let’s get out of here before the smell permanently bonds with our clothes."
Nat didn’t argue. He simply picked up his suit jacket he had discarded when they started drinking and put that one instead, if not he’d have been walking half naked.
As for his pants, he discarded them all together. He couldn’t go around in trousers that were soaked in vomit.
Xavier looked at him with a little shake of his head.
"What? You be in my shoes." Nat snarled, and then clicked his tongue. "Let’s go. I dare any reporter to post this on the Internet tomorrow. They’re dead."
Well, as long as it was Nat Collins, they were sure the reporters wouldn’t be so stupid as to throw their lives away.
April leaned her head against Xavier’s broad shoulder, her eyes fluttering shut as the warm, safe haven of his presence completely quieted the remaining ghosts in her mind.
She was exhausted, she was sore, and she was still technically in debt to a psychopath—but as her fingers loosely gripped the tycoon’s shirt, a small, weary smile touched her lips.
She felt light. Lighter than she had even been when she soaked into the revitalization pool. Without warning, she let her consciousness slip and she was halfway to the floor when Xavier caught her, sweeping her off her feet and into her arms.
Xavier adjusted his grip on her, holding her light frame effortlessly against his chest.
April didn’t offer a single shred of resistance, her head lulling against the crisp linen of his collar as she dropped into a deep slumber.
"Seriously," he whispered. "We are never letting you drink again."
"I’ll second that motion," Alexander muttered, carefully cradling her black block heels like they were artifacts as he kept pace with the tycoon’s long strides. "If a single cocktail turns a seer into a nuclear-level hazard, I think we should stick with virgin mocktails from now on."
Nat walked right beside them. He was wearing only in his dark crimson velvet suit jacket—buttoned tightly down the front to cover his bare, heavily tattooed chest—and stripped down to nothing but his dark silk boxer briefs.
He looked less like an elite underground king and more like a high-end asylum escapee.
He aggressively stomped his heavy boots against the marble tiles, his face completely dark as his thumb aggressively scrolled through his device, firing off preemptive death threats to any low-tier security guard or valet who might even think about raising a camera phone.
"Samuel," Xavier called out flatly the moment the heavy glass doors of the VIP lounge slid open, revealing the crisp, cool midnight air of the commercial district.
