Page 67 of Celestial Combat

The air in the room turned razor-sharp.

My heartbeat slammed once, hard. Trevor’s knuckles whitened around the phone. My vision tunneled, my body already shifting forward, already moving.

“You won’t hurt her.” Trevor’s voice was something deadly now. A fact, not a question.

“That’s up to you.” Tao’s voice was unhurried, calm. A man who knew he was in control. “You have one hour to get to the Blood Dragon, Chinatown. Bring fifty mil. Cash. All hundreds.”

My mind snapped to calculations. Fifty million. That wasn’t the real play. This wasn’t just about money.

This was about leverage. Power. Betrayal.

Tao wasn’t working alone.

My eyes darted to Trevor. His face was unreadable, locked down, but I knew what was beneath it.

Rage.

And then Tao gave the final blow.

“If you don’t…” A slight pause. A smirk in his tone. “You’ll find her in pieces. Clock’s ticking.”

The line went dead.

For a moment, the silence was suffocating.

Trevor lowered the phone slowly, staring at a fixed point on the table. The weight of it settled between us.

Betrayal.

Rats.

Punishment.

Then Trevor stood, shrugging his suit jacket on, and I was already moving.

I grabbed my gun from the desk drawer. Chambered a round. Calculating every possible angle – Tao’s strategy, the real players behind him, where Kali was right now and what they were doing to her.

Because I knew what happened to women when they were taken by men like Tao.

I wasn’t going to let that happen.

Trevor turned sharply towards Natalia. “No. You’re not coming.”

“Excuse me?”

Trevor’s expression was hard.

“I’ll get the guns.”

I didn’t wait for a response. Didn’t look at Trevor. I was already moving, each step measured, controlled – barely.

Inside, I was anything but.

Kali.

The name pulsed through my skull, searing hot, branding itself into every thought, every breath. She was out there, somewhere in Chinatown, in the hands of men who didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as her.

Men who thought they could touch her. Restrain her. Hurt her.