Chapter 18: The Price of the Crown
The adrenaline from the night's earlier victory was still humming in Michael's veins as he navigated the winding, lightless roads back toward the city. The rural landscape was a blur of grey and black, the hum of the sedan's engine providing a steady, rhythmic comfort. He reached for his phone, his thumb scrolling through his contacts with practiced ease. He needed to speak to his butler—not to discuss the estate, but to ensure the perimeter at the main house was tightened before his arrival.
As his thumb hovered over the number, the world outside his windshield suddenly fractured.
In the distance, two blinding beams of light cut through the darkness, horizontal and stationary. A car was parked sideways, completely blocking the narrow passage of the road.
"Damn it," Michael hissed.
He slammed his foot onto the brake pedal. The tires shrieked, clawing at the asphalt as the car skidded, the smell of burning rubber filling the cabin. The sedan jolted violently, stopping just a few meters short of the blockade.
Before the car had even finished settling on its suspension, Michael saw a figure standing in the spill of the headlights. The man was a silhouette of jagged edges, holding something heavy and metallic. Michael's instincts, honed by a lifetime of threats, took over. He didn't think; he reacted. He lunged downward, tucking his body into the footwell just as the night exploded.
The thunderous clatter-clatter-clack of an auto-mag gun ripped through the silence. Glass disintegrated. The windshield turned into a spiderweb of white fractures before caveing in, showering Michael in a rain of crystalline diamonds. The bodywork of the car groaned as lead tore through the expensive metal, shredding the leather upholstery inches above Michael's head.
The shooter was relentless, emptying the magazine in one long, deafening burst. Then, silence returned, heavy and ringing.
Michael remained still for a heartbeat, listening to the ticking of the cooling engine and the trickle of glass falling onto the floor mats. He slowly sat back up, his eyes narrow, scanning the wreckage. The man with the gun was gone from the front of the car.
Where?
The answer came with a horrific, screeching tear. A massive, curved blade—nearly the size of a short sword—erupted through the roof of the car, the steel shimmering like a shark's fin. Michael didn't hesitate. He reached into the backseat, his hand closing around the hilt of the concealed blade he always kept within reach.
He threw the door open and rolled out onto the gravel, his boots crunching as he stood his ground. On top of the ruined car stood a man. He was broad-shouldered, dressed in dark, utilitarian gear that suggested he was more than a common thug. With a grunt of effort, the assassin yanked his blade free from the roof, the metal groaning as it was forced back out.
"Who are you?" Michael asked, his voice chillingly calm despite the blood trickling from a small cut on his cheek.
The man looked down, a predatory grin visible in the moonlight. "Ah... just a common man earning his living, Mr. Visalla."
Michael let out a short, dry laugh. "Huh. Another one of you. You guys just can't stop coming after me, can you? Who hired you this time? Was it a rival house? Someone on the Board?"
The man jumped down from the roof, landing with the grace of a cat. He swung his blade in a low arc, testing the weight. "Hmm... well, I am not anyone special, but you must be someone very important. The client offered me a staggering amount of extra money to do more than just kill you. He wants me to slit your throat with this blade and offer him your head on a platter. It seems you've made someone very, very angry."
Michael shifted his weight, his own sword held in a low, defensive guard. "Well," Michael said, his eyes locking onto the assassin's. "Take it if you can."
The man didn't waste another breath. He rushed forward, his boots kicking up a cloud of dust.
The first clash was like a lightning strike. The sound of steel meeting steel rang out across the empty fields, a high-pitched scream of metal. The assassin was strong—far stronger than the street enforcers Michael usually dealt with. Every strike carried the weight of a sledgehammer.
Michael parried a wide, horizontal swing that would have decapitated him, the force of the blow vibrating up his arms and into his teeth. He stepped inside the man's reach, aiming a quick thrust at his throat, but the assassin spun away, his blade whistling through the air in a counter-attack.
They moved in a deadly dance around the wreckage of the car. The assassin was a whirlwind of steel, using the length of his blade to keep Michael at a distance. Michael, however, was a surgeon with his sword. He looked for the tiny openings—the tilt of a shoulder, the slight delay in a recovery.
"You're fast," the assassin grunted, stepping in for a heavy overhead chop. "But you're playing a gentleman's game. This is a slaughter."
The blade came down, and Michael caught it on his hilt, the two men locking eyes over the crossed steel. Michael tried to kick the man's knee, but the assassin anticipated the move, slamming his forehead into Michael's nose.
Michael stumbled back, blood blurring his vision. The world tilted. The assassin didn't give him a second to recover. He unleashed a flurry of strikes—left, right, low—forcing Michael back toward the side of his car.
With a roar of effort, the assassin swung his blade in a massive, two-handed arc. Michael raised his sword to block, but the sheer momentum of the hit was too much. His sword was ripped from his grip, flying into the tall grass several yards away. The force of the impact threw Michael back against the door of his sedan, his breath escaping him in a ragged gasp.
The assassin stopped, his chest heaving, his blade pointed at Michael's heart.
"Well," the man said, a touch of genuine regret in his voice. "This is the end. I actually enjoyed the fight, Visalla. What a waste of talent. You could have been one of us."
The man moved forward slowly, savoring the moment. He raised his blade high, preparing for a final, crushing swing intended to take Michael's arm and his life in one go.
As the blade began its descent, Michael didn't look for his sword. He didn't beg. Instead, he dropped low, the assassin's blade whistling inches above his head and slamming into the metal pillar of the car with a deafening thang.
While the assassin's blade was momentarily lodged in the car's frame, Michael's hand shot out. He didn't grab a weapon; he grabbed a large, jagged shard of the shattered windshield sitting on the windowsill.
With a guttural snarl, Michael drove the glass shard deep into the soft tissue of the man's neck.
The assassin's eyes went wide. He tried to speak, but only a wet, gurgling sound came out. Michael didn't stop. He followed the strike with a brutal, driving kick to the man's abdomen, sending him sprawling backward onto the gravel.
The man collapsed, clutching his throat as the dark blood pooled beneath him. He looked up at Michael, his face twisted in a mask of shock and betrayal. "Where... where is the chivalry?" he wheezed, his voice bubbling. "A Visalla... fighting with glass... like a dog..."
Michael stood over him, his navy suit ruined, his face smeared with blood and grease. He looked down at the dying man with a coldness that was deeper than the night.
"Chivalry?" Michael asked, his voice a low, dangerous whisper. "What will I do with chivalry when I'm dead? You came here to take my head for money. Don't talk to me about honor."
Michael turned away, leaving the man to his agony. He walked to the passenger side of the car and reached into the glove box, pulling out his silver case. With steady fingers, he took out a cigarette and lit it. The flame of the lighter flickered in the dark, a small, defiant spark.
He leaned against the hood of his destroyed car, watching the assassin's movements grow slower and slower as the life drained out of him. The moon hung high in the sky, indifferent to the violence on the road below.
Michael took a long drag of the cigarette, the smoke calming the roar of the adrenaline. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. This time, he didn't scroll. He hit the speed dial for his butler.
The line picked up on the first ring. "Sir?"
"Yeah," Michael said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "I need a car right now. I'm sending you my location. Bring a cleaning crew and a transport team."
"Is everything alright, Mr. Visalla?" the butler asked, the concern evident in his voice.
"I'm fine," Michael replied, looking down at the body on the ground. "But my car is a total loss. And make sure no one knows about this. I want this cleared before the sun comes up."
"Understood, sir. We are on our way."
Michael ended the call. He stood there in the middle of the empty, rural road, a cigarette in one hand and his ruined empire in the other. He looked up at the sky, watching the clouds drift slowly across the stars.
He had won the auction. He had protected his secret. He had killed the man sent to take his head. But as the silence of the countryside settled back over the scene, Michael knew that It was only the beginning. The "common men" would keep coming, and next time, he might not find a piece of glass in the wreckage.
He took one last drag, dropped the cigarette, and crushed it under his heel. He didn't look back at the body as the distant headlights of his rescue team appeared on the horizon. The heir of Visalla was going home.