'I Do' For Revenge-Chapter 244: We Are Alike

LAYLA’S POV

"He’s running!" I gasped, clutching the edge of the booth to pull myself up.

Customers were screaming. The coffee shop was in chaos. A woman dropped her latte, the ceramic shattering like a gunshot, making everyone duck.

"Secure the exits!" Tye’s voice roared through my earpiece. "Do not let him reach the public street!"

I scrambled over the overturned table. Charles was already at the back door, his expensive suit jacket flapping as he shoved a terrified waiter aside. He didn’t look back; he looked like a rat abandoning a sinking ship.

"Let him go," a voice said in my ear. It was Axel. His voice was terrifyingly calm. "I want him to feel safe for a while. I want him to run to his hole."

I pressed my hand to my earpiece, stumbling out the front door into the cool air. "Axel? He’s heading for the alley. Tye says there’s a bike stashed."

"I know," Axel replied. "We tracked the vehicle three days ago. Let him take it. If we arrest him here, it’s a public spectacle. Lawyers get involved. He gets bail."

"And if we let him run?" I asked, watching the back of the building.

"Then he goes to the one place he thinks I can’t touch him," Axel said darkly. "His sanctuary. That will be his graveyard. Get in the van with Tye. I’m already moving."

—

AXEL’S POV

The wind whipped against my face as I sped the black Ducati through the city traffic. Tye was in my ear, giving turn-by-turn directions.

"Target is moving East on 5th," Tye reported. "Speeding. He just ran a red light. He’s panicked, Axel. He’s making mistakes."

"Good," I said, twisting the throttle. The engine roared beneath me. "Keep the police back. Block the grid. I don’t want a single siren scaring him off before he reaches the water."

"Grid is jammed," Tye confirmed. "You have a clear path to the Waterfront. He’s going exactly where we predicted."

Charles thought he was a chess master. He thought he was the King on the board. But he didn’t realise he was playing against a man who had memorised his every move for twenty years. He wasn’t running to safety; he was running into the kill box.

I swerved past a delivery truck, seeing the waterfront skyline ahead. The skeletons of unfinished skyscrapers stood against the grey sky, projects Charles had started and abandoned when the money ran out.

"He’s entering the construction site," Tye said. "He’s dumping the bike."

"I see him," I said, killing my engine and coasting into the shadows of a crane.

Thirty yards away, Charles was scrambling off a motorcycle. He looked pathetic. His hair was wild, his tie gone, and his chest was heaving. He limped toward the rusty iron doors of the basement structure.

He fumbled with a keypad on the door.

"Damn it!" Charles screamed, kicking the metal. "Open! Open you piece of junk!"

"The code won’t work, Charles," I called out.

Charles turned around, his back hitting the iron door. His eyes went wide as I stepped out from behind a concrete pillar.

"Axel," he breathed. He tried to straighten his jacket, trying to summon that arrogant CEO persona he wore like armour. "You... you followed me."

"I invited you here," I corrected, walking slowly across the gravel. "Did you really think you escaped the coffee shop? I let you leave. I wanted us to be alone."

Charles let out a sharp, nervous laugh. "This is kidnapping, O’Brien. You touch me, and my lawyers will own everything you built. I have files. I have insurance policies!"

"Files?" I stopped ten feet away from him. "You mean the evidence of the bribes you paid to the FDA? Or the photos of the competitors you blackmailed? Or maybe the hitmen you hired to do your dirty jobs?"

Charles froze. "I didn’t... I... You don’t know that. You have no evidence."

"Don’t lie to me!" I roared, my voice echoing off the empty concrete walls. "We found them, Charles. Your hitman, the lawyer you bribed... they told us everything. You were willing to do anything to get what you want... even throwing your daughter under the bus."

Charles’s face twisted. The mask dropped. "It’s her fault... Layla! She needed a lesson! She was forgetting who made her! Ungrateful... just like her mother. I did what was necessary for the family legacy!"

"Legacy," I spat the word out. "Your legacy is blood and ruin."

Charles narrowed his eyes, sensing that threats weren’t working. He switched tactics instantly. The shark became the salesman.

"Listen to me, Axel," he said, holding up his hands. "Okay. You won. You outsmarted me. I can admit that. I respect that. You’re a businessman. Let’s make a deal."

I stared at him, saying nothing.

"I have money," Charles said quickly, stepping forward. "Hidden accounts in the Caymans. Fifty million. Untraceable. It’s yours... all of it. Just let me walk away. I’ll disappear. I’ll go to a non-extradition country. You will have Layla to yourself; you keep your company. I just want my life."

"You think this is about money?" I asked quietly.

"Everything is about money!" Charles shouted. "Don’t act like a saint! You’re a corporate raider, O’Brien! You destroy companies for breakfast. We are the same!"

"We are nothing alike."

"We are exactly alike!" Charles insisted, sounding desperate now. "Why do you think I allowed your marriage to Layla even though I was against it? Because I saw myself in you! The ruthlessness! The ambition! Take the fifty million. Walk away. Who benefits if I go to jail? No one! Take the money!"

I reached into my jacket. Charles flinched, thinking I was pulling a gun. Instead, I pulled out a tattered, yellowing photograph. I let it flutter to the ground between us.

Charles looked down. "What is this?"

"Look at it."

He squinted at the photo in the dirt. It was a picture of a couple laughing, standing in front of a blue sedan near a mountain overlook.

"I don’t know them," Charles sneered. "Some nobodies?"

"Those ’nobodies’," I said, my voice trembling with suppressed rage, "were Robert and Sarah Hammond."