Contract Marriage After a Crazy Night

Chapter 196: ~ 196

Chapter 196

~ Franklin ~

The forest had gone quiet again. It wasn’t the natural, rhythmic hum of the insects or the rustle of the wind; it was a heavy, suffocating silence that settled over the canopy like a shroud. It was the kind of quiet that watched you. I felt it before I understood it—a prickling pressure at the base of my skull, a subtle shift in the barometric pressure of the clearing. Something was fundamentally wrong.

I sat motionless where they had forced us to ground, my back pressed against the rough, moss-covered bark of a mahogany tree. I stretched my right leg out, trying to find a millimeter of relief from the agonizing, rhythmic throb that pulsed through my thigh. Every heartbeat was a hammer blow against my bone. Beside me, Raquel was a statue of alert silence, her eyes tracking every shadow.

Our captors were fraying. The restlessness that had taken hold of them after the first mysterious gunshot had only deepened. They were no longer the disciplined unit that had found us; they were darker, quicker, their movements jagged and uncontrolled. They were scared. I could see the weakness in the way they kept glancing over their shoulders, aiming their weapons at shadows that weren’t there. freeweɓnøvel.com

My jaw tightened. The more I deconstructed the events of the last forty-eight hours, the more the "accident" felt like a surgical strike. The speed at which these men had intercepted us at the precise coordinates of the crash wasn’t luck. It wasn’t even coincidence. It was a harvest. Someone knew my flight path.

Someone knew the exact moment the signal would drop.

Whether it was Anthony Rice, playing the long game from within my own office, or Dorian Harrington, finally moving to prune the Flemington family tree, I was exactly where they wanted me: dead or disappeared.

"Move!" the leader barked suddenly. The command was sharp, born of a desperation to get away from the phantom sniper in the trees.

Rough hands hauled me up. I let out a low, guttural grunt as the pain exploded behind my eyes, turning the green world white for a split second. Raquel was there instantly, her shoulder wedged under mine, acting as the human crutch that kept me from collapsing back into the mud.

"Easy," she whispered. I didn’t answer; I just leaned into her, saving my breath for the trek.

My mind, however, remained clinical. I counted: four men. One wounded. One leader who held the leash. If we were to survive, the hierarchy had to be shattered.

"Rápido!" the leader snapped, shoving us forward.

We plunged deeper into the heart of the jungle. The ground was a treacherous web of jutting roots and slick decay. Each step was a fresh descent into hell, the sharp, piercing pain in my leg threatening to snap my resolve. Raquel stayed close, her presence a grounding wire in the storm.

"What are you thinking?" she breathed as we navigated a steep ravine.

"That this isn’t how the Flemington story ends," I mumbled. She glanced at me, a flash of shared defiance in her eyes. She felt it too. The forest had eyes, and those eyes were currently locked on us.

A sharp rustle echoed from a thicket of ferns ten yards ahead. The group froze instantly. Weapons were raised, hammers clicked back in the humid air.

"¿Escuchaste eso?" one of the men whispered, his Spanish slipping out in his fear.

"Fique quieto!" the leader hissed back in Portuguese.

The silence that followed was heavy, a weight that pressed against my eardrums. Then, the air split apart.

Crack.

The sound of gunfire was followed by a sharp cry. One of the captors crumpled, his rifle clattering against the stones. This time, there was no hesitation. The forest exploded into a calculated symphony of violence. More shots rang out—not the wild, desperate spraying of our captors, but rhythmic, suppressed pops.

Raquel pulled me down behind a fallen log as lead whistled through the leaves above us. "Stay down!" she cried.

"Para trás! Para trás!" the leader shouted, trying to rally his men, but his voice was drowned out by the precision of the assault.

Figures began to emerge from the emerald gloom. They moved with a terrifying, fluid grace, clad in dark, matte-finished tactical gear and camouflage that made them look like extensions of the shadows. These weren’t locals. These were professionals.

A man stepped into the clearing, his rifle leveled with unwavering certainty. "Drop it! Agora!"

His voice carried the kind of absolute authority that didn’t invite debate. It was a cold, iron command. Two of our remaining captors lowered their barrels, their hands shaking. The third—the one holding the leader’s position—snarled and began to swing his weapon toward the newcomer. freewebnovёl.ƈom

It was a fatal mistake. A single shot rang out, and he went down before his finger could even find the trigger.

Silence returned, but it was different now. It was a safe, structured silence. The man who had stepped forward approached us, his weapon lowered to a low-ready position. He looked at me, his eyes scanning my face with a professional intensity.

"Are you Franklin Flemington?"

My chest tightened. "Yes," I rasped, my voice sounding foreign to my own ears.

Relief—brief and hidden—flickered across his stoic features. "Good. We’ve been looking for you, sir."

Raquel let out a long, shaky breath, her grip on my arm finally loosening. "Who are you? Who sent you?"

The man gestured to his team, who were already zip-tying the survivors. "Search and Rescue, coordinated through the Global Aviation Emergency Response. We’ve been on your trail since your transponder went dark."

"How?" I asked, my mind struggling to bridge the gap between being a prisoner and being a survivor. "The search area is thousands of square miles."

"We didn’t search blindly," he explained calmly. "We picked up movement—unusual satellite pings and radio chatter from people who shouldn’t be in this sector."

He looked toward the wounded man in the dirt. "The captors. They led us right to you. I moved ahead of my team to scout. I was the one who took the shoulder shot earlier."

I looked at him, the pieces of the last hour finally falling into place. "The distraction. You were waiting for your team to flank them."

"I had to confirm you were hostages and not part of the local cell," he replied with a slight nod. "Once I had visual confirmation of your identity, I waited for the window."

"You saved our lives," Raquel said softly.

"That’s the job, ma’am." He turned to his radio. "Eagle One, we have the primary asset. Extraction point Delta. Move in."

The tension I had been holding for days—the sheer, exhausting weight of staying alive—finally broke. I leaned my head back against the log, a slow breath escaping my lungs. We were found. We weren’t going to rot in this green hell.

Raquel leaned into me, her own strength faltering now that the adrenaline was draining away. I steadied her, my hand finding hers. "It’s over," I whispered.

"Yeah," she breathed. "We made it."

The team leader stepped closer, assessing my leg. "Our extraction bird is three klicks out. We need to move. You’re injured, sir; let’s get you mobile."

He reached down, hoisting my arm over his broad shoulder while another operative moved to support my other side. As they began to move us out of the clearing, my mind drifted away from the mud and the blood. I thought of the Flemington estate. I thought of my grandfather. Most of all, I thought of Octavia.

I wondered if she had already started mourning me. I wondered if Dorian was already measuring the drapes in my office.

A sharp, cold fire ignited in my chest, more potent than the pain in my leg. I wasn’t just a survivor anymore. I was a man returning from the dead, and I had a debt to settle.

This wasn’t over. For Dorian Harrington and Anthony Rice, the nightmare was only just beginning.