Chapter 64 The Death of Jason Wallace
Jason instinctively pressed the brake, slowing the car.
“This is Jason Wallace, with the Wallace family’s real estate company. Vince and I have an important business arrangement. How did he die?”
The woman apparently knew about the relationship between Vince and the Wallaces. Her voice lost some of its wariness.
“I don’t know the details. I heard he crossed someone he shouldn’t have. They came to his office and killed him.”
Killed him in his own office?
Jason’s pulse quickened. A sick feeling settled in his stomach. Whatever had happened, he was certain it had something to do with him.
“Do you know who did it?”
“I asked Kyle Lawson, but he kept dodging the question. One of the guys told me a young man came to the office looking for Vince yesterday. After that, Vince was dead. His two men, Iron Fist and The Ghoul, were killed too.”
A young man?
His chest tightened.
“Was his name Ryan Carter?”
“I don’t know.” The woman sighed. “They said he was twenty-six or twenty-seven. Didn’t sound local. That’s about all I know. Nobody will tell me the details, and Kyle has taken over the company now—”
Jason hung up.
He pulled over to the curb, his thoughts spinning.
Twenty-six or twenty-seven. An out-of-town accent.
That’s Ryan.
He’d hired Vince to kill Ryan. Instead, Ryan had gone to the contracting company and killed Vince—and the two formidable enforcers protecting him?
Yesterday?
If it really was Ryan, then he must know who had hired Vince.
Vince was already dead.
Does that make me next?
His heart hammered. Suddenly, he remembered what Ryan had said at the gala.
A dark shadow over my brow. Blood in my future.
A bead of cold sweat rolled down his forehead.
Had Ryan been telling him that he knew? That he was coming for him next?
That he intended to kill him?
I can’t stay here.
The pieces fell into place. He needed to get out of Asheville and lie low.
He started the car again and called his father.
“Dad, a friend’s getting married in Raleigh. I’m going to spend a few days there.”
“Now? With everything going on at the company?”
Jason could barely think straight.
I’m about to get killed. Who gives a damn about the company?
“I’ll make arrangements,” he said vaguely. “If anything comes up, I can handle it remotely—”
A deafening horn blasted behind him.
Again.
And again.
Headlights flooded the car with blinding white light.
What the hell are you honking at?
Jason turned angrily.
Through the blinding glare, he saw a massive truck bearing down on him like a runaway train, its horn blaring.
Against the speeding, fully loaded truck, his sports car was little more than a toy.
The impact hurled it sideways. It rolled toward the curb and slammed into a raised flower bed.
The truck never stopped.
It plowed straight into the wreck.
Metal crumpled with a thunderous crash.
The sports car came apart as the truck smashed through it and into the planter, demolishing a broad section of the wall.
Back at the hotel, Andrew stopped with one hand on his car door. The crash had come through the phone loud and clear.
“Jason? Jason!”
He turned to his wife.
“Get in! Something’s happened to Jason!”
Ryan’s gaze sharpened.
Kyle made his move?
“What happened? Let’s go see.”
Chloe knew nothing of the events behind Andrew’s alarm. Curious and uneasy, she urged Ryan to follow.
She had refused to leave with her parents and planted herself in his passenger seat instead.
Ryan pulled away from the hotel. A little farther down the road, traffic slowed to a crawl, funneling into a single lane.
Soon, the crash came into view.
A loaded truck that appeared to have lost control. Fragments of an exotic sports car scattered across the road.
The scene was horrific.
The truck driver sat off to one side, blood running from his forehead, his expression blank.
Ryan couldn’t see Jason.
A leg clad in white suit pants protruded from the crushed metal. Blood seeped from the wreckage, spreading across the pavement.
Chloe’s eyes widened. She clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Is that… Jason?”
Ryan didn’t stop. He eased through the narrow opening beside the wreck and continued down the road.
“Looks like it.”
“Is he dead?” she murmured, dazed.
Ryan nodded.
“Nobody could survive that.”
Chloe turned to him, her expression shifting.
“You said there was a dark shadow over his brow. That you saw blood in his future. And it actually happened. Can you really tell fortunes?”
“A little,” Ryan said lightly. “I warned him. He didn’t believe me.”
Chloe bit her lip and lowered her head.
For a long while, she said nothing.
Then she asked quietly, “Did you have anything to do with this?”
“Why would you ask that?” Ryan replied evenly.
“A feeling.”
She kept her eyes on her lap.
“Earlier, you said somebody was going to die. I thought you were joking. But now… maybe you already knew Jason would die.”
Ryan considered that for a moment.
Then he asked calmly, “Do you want the truth, or a lie?”