Chapter forty three
Dion
The SUV was gone. Of course it fucking was. I stood in the empty impound lot behind the Stonebridge sheriff ’s station at one-thirty in the morning, staring at a rectangle of fresh oil stains and shattered glass where the black SUV should’ve been.
Two days. That was all it took for evidence to disappear in this town. I laughed bitterly under my breath. Typical. The crash that nearly killed Nadia Slade had become the biggest story Stonebridge had seen in years, and somehow the vehicle responsible vanished before sunrise.
No reports.
No investigation.
No media.
Nothing.
Just another corpse buried beneath Stonebridge secrets. The chain link fence rattled softly behind me as Kenji climbed over and dropped into the lot beside me.
“Told you it’d be gone.”
“Yeah?” I muttered.
“Well, I was hoping the cops would at least pretend to do their jobs first.” Kenji shoved his hands into his hoodie pockets and surveyed the empty space.
“This feels wrong.” Everything felt wrong lately.
Nadia unconscious, Olympus suddenly real, and Riven Devereaux running around town looking like he wanted to skin people alive. None of it sat right in my chest. I crouched near the oil stains and dragged my fingers through broken safety glass scattered across the pavement, then paused.
“What’s that?” Kenji stepped closer. Half-hidden beneath the debris sat a small black metal piece no bigger than my palm. Not from the vehicle, no. This was too clean. I picked it up carefully. A military-grade comms transmitter. My stomach tightened instantly.
“What the fuck…”
“This wasn’t local,” Kenji murmured.
No shit. Nobody in Stonebridge used equipment like this. Not gangs, not cops, not even Kingsmen. I turned the transmitter over slowly and froze. Etched into the underside were three pillars. Tiny, almost invisible, but there. The same symbol. Cold slid slowly down my spine.
“I’ve seen this before,” I muttered quietly. Kenji looked over sharply.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.” Frustration immediately flared.
“I just know I have.” And suddenly another memory hit me.
Not fully. Just fragments. A cold underground room. Concrete walls. A man in a suit speaking to someone whose face I couldn’t remember. Maps spread across a table. That symbol stamped across folders. My head started pounding.
“Dion?”
I ignored him and moved farther across the impound lot. Something else glinted beneath one of the dumpsters nearby. I crouched again. Phone fragments that had been burned, destroyed intentionally. But one piece still held partial text burned into the shattered screen:
ASCENSION CANDIDATE: A-
The rest melted away. My pulse spiked violently. Ascension? Candidate?
“What the fuck is Olympus?” I whispered. Kenji looked increasingly uneasy now.
“We should leave.”
“Not yet.” I insisted.
“Dion.”
Then headlights flooded the lot. Both of us froze. A black sedan rolled slowly around the corner without headlights on before stopping near the entrance. It was too deliberate, too quiet. The passenger door opened. A man stepped out wearing all black.
No gang colors or visible tattoos. No emotion. Another exited from the driver’s side. Then another. Three total. Every instinct in my body immediately sharpened. These guys were not.
Kingsmen. Not even local. These were professionals. Kenji took a step backward slowly.
“Dion…” He whispered. One of the men spoke calmly.
“You weren’t supposed to find that.” My grip tightened around the transmitter automatically.
“Who the fuck are you?” No answer. Instead, the tallest one tilted his head slightly.
“You should’ve stayed in your lane.”
The words hit harder than they should’ve. Because suddenly I understood something horrifying. This wasn’t random. They knew who I was. Not Dion Hattori, not King of the Daredevil, but something else. But who, I didn’t know. The tallest man’s gaze lowered briefly toward the transmitter in my hand.
“You are not authorized for ascension.” My stomach dropped.
“…what?” Kenji breathed. The man calmly reached beneath his jacket. Gun.
“Run.” I snapped instantly.
Gunfire exploded across the impound lot.
Kenji dove sideways behind a totaled pickup just as bullets ripped through the fence behind us.
I fired back immediately from instinct alone, adrenaline slamming violently through my chest as the first attacker moved with terrifying precision toward cover. Not sloppy, not emotional.
They fought like machines. One advanced while another flanked. Military. Or worse. A bullet clipped my shoulder hard enough to spin me sideways into the hood of a wrecked sedan. Pain exploded down my arm.
“Fuck!” Kenji fired wildly from behind the truck.
“Who are these people?!”
“I don’t know!” Lie. Deep down? I think I did.
Olympus.
The name echoed violently through my skull now.
Not myth. Not rumor, but real. Very fucking real.
And somehow connected to me whether I wanted it or not.
One attacker vaulted over a car with terrifying speed and came straight for me.
I barely blocked the knife aimed at my throat before slamming him backward into the fence.
The man recovered instantly. Too fast. He struck again. Disciplined, efficient, and dead-eyed. Like killing people bored him.
“Heirs shouldn’t be raised so far from home. Especially not in a shithole like this.” He spat as he tried to force the blade downward. My blood ran cold instantly.
“What?” The attacker headbutted me hard enough to blur my vision.
“Hades chose incorrectly.” Rage detonated through me instantly.
I slammed the gun into his jaw repeatedly until bone crunched beneath the impact before firing directly into his chest. The man collapsed. Dead, but not before smiling.
Actually smiling. The remaining attackers immediately retreated toward the sedan.
Not panicked nor hurried. They were mission-oriented.
One fired twice toward us before climbing back inside the vehicle.
Then the sedan disappeared into the darkness as quickly as it arrived.
Silence crashed over the lot. Kenji stumbled out from cover, breathing hard.
“What the fuck was that?” I stared down at the dead man bleeding across the pavement.
Inside his sleeve, the pillar and olive branch tattoo. Below it, three smaller pillars. My stomach twisted violently. Because suddenly every single thing in my life felt unstable.
My parents, the Kingsmen, the race, Stonebridge. And worst of all? The man’s final words kept replaying in my skull over and over again.
Heirs shouldn’t be raised so far from home. Especially not in a shithole like this.
Heir? Meaning there was supposed to be one. Meaning Olympus had successors. Meaning somebody had already been chosen. And deep down? I already knew exactly who it was.