The CEO's Regret: You made me your lie, I become your Loss-Chapter 84: Come at me

Suddenly, a red light began to blink on a stack of crates in the corner, a rapid, insistent ticking sound beginning to fill the silence. The timer had been triggered.

"Julian!" Amara shouted, her voice rising above the deafening roar of the engine that echoed outside.

Panic bubbled in her chest as she strained to believe that the sound wasn’t just a figment of her imagination. "Julian, we’re in here!" she called again, desperation lacing her words as she searched every shadow for a glimpse of him, hoping he would answer. The dim light flickered around her, casting eerie shapes on the walls, amplifying her anxiety.

The ticking of the timer accelerated, a sharp, metallic heartbeat that filled the humid air of the warehouse. Shane stood over them, his eyes wide and vacant, a man who had already stepped into the afterlife in his own mind.

"Yeah... no one is coming to save you."

Shane’s voice scraped out of his throat, raw and uneven, like it hurt just to speak. The knife in his hand quivered not from mercy, but from something far more dangerous. Unstable. Unhinged. His grip tightened anyway, knuckles paling as his lips curled.

"No one gets in," he added, each word dragging like a sentence already passed. "And no one is getting out." His eyes flicked between them, cold, final. "Both of you... deserve to die."

The air thickened.

For a split second, everything held, breath, movement, time itself, like the world was bracing for what came next.

Then Shane moved.

He lunged. Fast. Violent. The blade caught the dim light as it cut through the air, aimed straight for Amara.

But before it could reach her. A body slammed into him. Sebastian.

It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t planned. It was the last, fraying thread of a man who should already be on the ground. His shirt clung to him, soaked through with blood, dark and heavy, each step he’d taken already a miracle.

The poison clawed through his veins, burning his chest, stealing his breath in sharp, shallow gasps.

Still, he moved.

With a broken, guttural sound, Sebastian hurled himself forward and wrapped his arms around Shane’s legs, dragging him down with every ounce of strength he had left.

It was desperate. Ugly. Survival stripped to its rawest form.

A dying man refusing to let death claim Amara first.

"Amara... run!" Seb choked out, his voice bubbling with blood. "Go! Now!"

Amara tried to move. God, she tried.

Her hands scraped against the cold floor as she pushed herself back, nails dragging, breath snagging in her throat. But her legs... her legs refused. They felt distant, heavy, like they didn’t belong to her anymore, as something had wrapped around them and nailed her to that very spot.

The blinking lights didn’t help. Red. Red. Red.

They pulsed from the crates stacked around the room, slow and steady like a heartbeat. Like a countdown. Each flash burned into her eyes, into her mind, until all she could see was that color. Danger. Death. Ending.

Her gaze snapped to the exit.

The steel doors loomed at the far end, thick, unmoving, suffocating in their finality. She could almost feel the cold metal from where she was. Almost imagine her hands slamming against it, screaming, begging.

But it was too far. Far enough to matter. Far enough to kill her.

The realization settled in her chest like a stone, crushing the air out of her lungs. A laugh cut through the silence. Sharp. Wrong.

"Amara..." Shane’s voice dripped with something hollow, something that barely resembled a human emotion anymore. "Did you really think you were going to escape?" She flinched.

He shifted, trying to shake Sebastian off, his boot slamming hard against him, but Sebastian didn’t let go. Not even a little. If anything, his grip tightened, fingers locking like iron despite the blood, despite the poison eating him alive.

Shane’s laughter twisted, rising, unraveling.

"This place..." he went on, almost gleeful now, like he was letting her in on a secret she should have never known. "It’s rigged." Another red blink. Amara’s breath hitched.

"With explosives," he added, his voice dropping into something quieter, more intimate, more terrifying. "Every corner." Red.

"Every shadow." Red.

The light flashed again, and this time it felt closer. Like it was already counting down the last seconds of her life.

Is this it? The thought didn’t come gently; it slammed into her, loud and suffocating, drowning out everything else.

Her heart pounded so hard it hurt, each beat crashing against her ribs like it was trying to break free, like it refused to accept what her mind was already beginning to understand. Is this how it ends?

Her gaze flickered, unsteady, desperate, taking in everything at once and nothing at all. The red lights. The cold floor beneath her trembling hands. Sebastian is still clinging to Shane like a man already halfway to the grave.

Seb... Her chest tightened painfully. Are we really going to die here? After everything.

After the lies, the pain, the endless running. After fighting so hard just to survive.

Her thoughts spiraled, faster now, breaking apart, colliding. After Julian...

His name alone hit her like a blow, sharp and aching, dragging a thousand memories in its wake.

After finally having Amira...

A fragile, trembling breath slipped past her lips. Her vision blurred, the edges of the world softening as something warm gathered in her eyes.

No. No, it couldn’t end like this.

Not when she had just found something worth living for. Not when she had something, someone, to go back to.

Her fingers curled against the floor, trembling, as if holding onto that thought was the only thing keeping her from falling apart completely.

Shane looked up at the ceiling, his expression suddenly softening into a terrifying, peaceful smile. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black detonator.

"Elara... Hello," he whispered, his thumb hovering over the red button. "I’ll be joining you now. We’ll be a family again."

He closed his eyes, his thumb beginning to descend

BOOM.

The massive steel doors didn’t open; they were blown inward.

A black SUV had slammed through the entrance at full speed, the screech of tires and the roar of the engine drowning out the ticking of the bomb. Before the dust could even settle, Julian surged out of the driver’s side, his face a mask of lethal, cold fury.

But it was Amira who moved first.

Having escaped the car before it even stopped, she didn’t head for Amara. She saw Shane’s thumb on the detonator and launched herself through the air like a streak of fire, her new red hair flashing in the dim light.

"Not today, you son of a bitch!" Amira screamed. Amira didn’t wait for Julian to reach them; she was a blur of crimson hair and raw, calculated fury. She had spent a lifetime being the bad sister, the one who knew how to strike first and ask questions later, and now she channeled every ounce of that darkness into saving the only person who had ever truly forgiven her.

"Not today!" Amira screamed, her voice echoing off the corrugated metal.

She slammed into Shane just as his thumb began to press down on the detonator.

The force of the impact sent them both sprawling across the oil-slicked concrete. Shane, fueled by the adrenaline of his own death wish, lashed out with the curved knife, but Amira was faster.

She grabbed his wrist, her nails digging into his skin, forcing the blade away from her throat.

"You want to die?" Amira hissed, her face inches from his. "Then die alone! You don’t get to take her!"

Shane roared, a sound of pure, animalistic grief, and tried to throw her off. He was stronger, but Amira was fighting for a redemption she had only just started to taste. She used her weight to pin his arm, her eyes locked onto the black detonator that had skittered across the floor, resting just out of reach.

While Amira kept Shane occupied in a brutal struggle, Julian reached the center of the room. He didn’t look at Shane; his eyes were only for Amara. He dropped to his knees, his hands trembling as he checked her for wounds.

"Amara! Look at me!" Julian commanded, his voice a tether to reality.

"Julian... Seb... he took the knife for me," Amara sobbed, her hands still pressed against Sebastian’s bleeding side. "The bomb, Julian! The timer!"

Julian looked at the blinking red lights on the crates. 00:12.

He didn’t panic. He pulled a tactical knife from his belt and sliced through the remaining ropes on Amara’s ankles in one clean motion. "Amira! The detonator!

Get it!"

Amira heard him and delivered a sharp, desperate kick to Shane’s ribs, creating just enough space to lung for the small black box. Her fingers brushed the plastic just as Shane grabbed her ankle, pulling her back.

00:08.

"Let go!" Amira yelled, planting her other foot into Shane’s chest. She lunged again, grasping the detonator. She didn’t know the code, but she saw a toggle switch on the side.

00:05.

Shane lunged one last time, his fingers clawing at her face, but Julian was there now. He stepped over Amira and delivered a crushing blow that sent Shane sprawling back into the darkness of the warehouse.

00:02.

Amira flipped the switch.

The frantic ticking stopped. The red lights turned a solid, mocking green. The silence that followed was so heavy it felt like a physical weight.

The deafening roar of the warehouse was suddenly pierced by the sharp, rhythmic cracks of police fire. Shane, lunging one last time at Amira with a madness that no longer saw reality, was thrown backward as the bullets found their mark.

He slumped against the rusted crates, the light finally leaving his eyes, surrounded by the ghosts he had tried so hard to join.

The silence that followed was broken only by the heavy breathing of the survivors and the distant, wailing sirens of the approaching medical teams.

Julian didn’t wait for the dust to settle. He was on his knees, pulling Amara into his chest with a strength that was both desperate and grounding.

"Amara, are you alright?" His voice trembled with worry, a rough edge betraying the anxiety knotting in his stomach. He leaned closer, his eyes sweeping over her face and arms, desperately searching for any sign of injury.

His hands, trembling slightly, gently brushed against her skin, as if hoping to feel life and warmth rather than the cold grip of harm.

"Please, tell me you’re not hurt," he urged, his breath hitching as he anxiously awaited her response.