Time did not exist in the place they kept him.There was only pain.Pain, and the dull ringing in his ears that felt like someone pressing a cold coin against the inside of his skull.
When consciousness finally dragged him upward—slowly, painfully, like being hauled by the hair from the bottom of a frozen lake—Adrian Vale Harrington found himself lying on the concrete floor of a windowless warehouse. His cheek throbbed. His left eye refused to open fully. His ribs screamed with every breath.
He didn't remember falling.He didn't remember the fists.He didn't remember the boots slamming into his sides.But he felt all of it in the deep, hidden layers of himself.
He was cold.He was shivering.His wrists burned where the binds had rubbed raw skin to exposed flesh.
The overhead light flickered—too bright when it was on, too dark when it blinked out. His head felt swollen, as if someone had inflated it with a pump, and every time he inhaled, it sounded like torn fabric inside his lungs.
He tasted iron.He smelled blood—mostly his own, but not all.
For a few unstable seconds, he thought he might still be dreaming.That this was some warped nightmare conjured by cheap vodka and a lonely heart.
But then a boot nudged his leg—unceremoniously, like testing whether roadkill was still warm.He groaned.The pain was too real to be a dream.
And that was when he understood.This was not a prank.Not a misunderstanding.Not some hazy half-reality.
He was kidnapped.
Actually kidnapped.
He let out a strangled, broken laugh—part disbelief, part terror, part animal instinct. The sound scraped his throat raw.
A voice somewhere behind him muttered, "He's awake again."
Adrian flinched.
Another voice—low, irritated—answered, "Doesn't matter. They're not paying. Keep him breathing until we hear back. After that…"
Silence.
After that.
The words slithered into his bones.
He tried to speak—tried to demand answers, tried to assert who he was, tried to summon the arrogant prince he'd always been—but his mouth felt clumsy and swollen, and what came out was barely more than a croaked whisper:
"My… my father will—"
A fist descended on him without warning.
He didn't see it.He didn't brace for it.He only felt the impact split through his jaw and felt the world swing violently sideways as his head hit concrete.
Stars burst behind his eyelids.His ears rang like church bells underwater.
The man who hit him grabbed him by the hair, jerking his head up."Your father," the captor spat, "isn't coming."
Adrian blinked, vision blurring.
"My dad—he'll pay—he'll pay anything—just tell him—"
A harsh laugh cut him off."You really don't know. Pathetic."
"Know… what?"
The man shoved his head down again, letting it smack the floor.This time Adrian couldn't even cry out.His body was too slow, too numb, too battered.
"Tell the pig," someone else muttered from the corner, "tell him the good news."
The first man stepped back."Well, Harrington heir," he said with twisted amusement, "you're free now."
Adrian frowned, breathing ragged."What… what do you… mean…"
"Your parents," the man said, as if announcing the weather, "died tonight."
The world stopped.
He thought he misheard.He had to have misheard.
Because his parents were immortal—indestructible—untouchable—They were the sun and moon of the global economy, the two pillars upon which half the world leaned.
People like that didn't die.
Not without shaking the planet.
A trembling rose in him, uncontrollable, like a child losing his footing on ice.
"No…" he whispered. "No—don't—don't lie—"
"They got into a car crash," the man continued. "Racing to transfer your ransom. Rushed. Panicked. Stupid of them. Their security couldn't keep up."
It sounded like a joke.
A cruel joke.
But the killer blow came from a whisper—two kidnappers speaking behind him, thinking he was too beaten, too broken, too drugged to hear clearly.
"…the idiots delivering the ransom got word the inheritance wasn't changing…""…thought the parents were cutting the son off, wanted to grab him first…""…wrong information… the old man never removed him…""…parents died trying to save a son who doesn't even know how to stay sober…"
Adrian's heart stopped beating properly.It stuttered.It stumbled.It folded in on itself like collapsing steel.
His parents…They died…Because of him.
Because he went out partying.Because he stormed out like a child after the fight.Because someone thought he was being disinherited.Because they rushed to save him.
His breath caught in his throat.His vision blurred into watery white.
He tried to inhale but the air refused to fill his lungs.It felt like drowning on dry land.
His father's voice echoed in his skull—You are wasting your life.You don't have time.
His mother's trembling whisper seeped into the cracks of his breaking heart—I don't want to lose you.
He had lost them.
And it was his fault.
A sound escaped him—a choked gasp that almost resembled a sob, but nothing fully formed. His throat felt too tight. His chest too crushed. The pain inside him too vast.
Something died in him at that moment.
Not physically.Not visibly.
Something deep. Something rooted. Something essential.
The boy he was—the spoiled heir, the party brat, the harmless clown—that boy curled inward like a dying flame and extinguished itself quietly in the farthest corner of his soul.
The kidnappers weren't done with him.Not yet.
Hands gripped him.He was lifted, thrown against a wall.He felt ribs crack—or maybe they were already cracked before.He felt a boot dig into his spine.He felt the sharp sting of a baton hitting shoulder, thigh, stomach.
But none of it registered fully.
Physical pain was nothing now.
Compared to what was happening inside him, the blows were distant, meaningless, shadows flickering across the surface of a far deeper wound.
He didn't fight back.
He didn't scream.
He just let it happen.
Because what was the point?
They could beat him until his bones turned to powder, and it wouldn't come close to the agony pulsing through the hollow place where his heart used to be.
He didn't know how long the beating went on.
Minutes.Hours.A lifetime.
Eventually one of the men said, "Enough. He'll die before the buyer confirms."
They let him drop.His body hit the ground like a discarded bag of sand.His breath rattled.He coughed blood.
He was drifting away—Eyes closing—Consciousness slipping—The world dimming—
When the first explosion shook the warehouse.
The kidnappers froze.
Adrian blinked, dazed, barely processing the change.
A sharp crack split the air—Gunshots.Controlled. Precise.
Shouts.Footsteps pounding.A door crashing inward.
"GO! GO! SECURE THE HOSTAGE!"
The kidnappers scattered.Two ran toward the back exit; one aimed a gun at the entrance—
A single suppressed shot cut him down instantly.
Adrian lay still, eyes half open, unable to move.
He felt hands on him—gloved but gentle compared to everything before.
"Subject located! He's alive—repeat, he's alive!"
Alive.
For some reason the word felt strange.
Why would he be alive when his parents weren't?
Someone lifted his head slightly.A flashlight checked his pupils.Another agent cut the restraints.
"Pulse rapid, shallow breathing—get the stretcher NOW!"
Adrian's lips parted.
He tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
His throat trembled with the attempt.
One of the CIA operatives knelt beside him."Adrian Harrington, we're here to get you out. You're safe."
Safe.
Safe from the kidnappers, maybe.
But not from the truth.
Not from the death lodged inside his chest.
As the agents lifted him onto the stretcher, as the warehouse walls receded, as flashing lights cast ghostly white across his battered face, Adrian felt consciousness slip away again—
And for the first time in his life, he welcomed the darkness.