Bound by lies, Trapped by Desire - Chapter 51: Chapter 51

Elena’s POV:
She just wouldn’t stop arguing.
“Elena—”
“No! I told you, I’m not jumping out of a speeding death machine! You want to die, go ahead, but I’m not helping you do it. Especially if someone else could die! ”
Her voice was hoarse from shouting, her eyes glassy with adrenaline, and I swear to God, if I wasn’t losing my mind from the sheer danger of the situation, I might have admired her. Might have kissed her just to shut her up.
But we were in a car with a goddamn bomb ticking in the console, flying at breakneck speed down a near-empty highway, with a city full of civilians just miles ahead of us.
And she was still arguing.
“Elena,” I growled, trying to keep my voice steady, “this isn’t about pride, or humanity, or proving something. This is about survival. Let me take the wheel alright? You jump first. I’ll be right behind you.”
A couple seconds passed.
“Bullshit,” she snapped. “You think I don’t see what you’re trying to do?”
Of course she did. It was written all over her face. The anger wasn’t even hiding the fear anymore.
“I can’t let anyone else die because of me….or to save me,” she said quietly, like it physically hurt to admit.
And that’s what did it. That’s when the full weight of the situation finally snapped into focus.
I wasn’t afraid of dying. I’d danced that line too many times to pretend otherwise. When you’re one of the richest men in Alderidge, you get used to being a target. Hell, I’d been shot at multiple times before. Once by my own father. Poisoned. Twice. There was always someone who wanted to see me gone.
I could handle that. I’d built my entire life expecting it.
But Elena? She wasn’t supposed to be in the crosshairs.
She wasn’t supposed to be next to me in this cursed car, next to a bomb that could vaporize us both in seconds.
And I had put her here.
Someone had obviously sabotaged the car. Everything taken into consideration, time and distance included. They probably knew we were going back to Velhaven. Otherwise the brakes wouldn’t have stopped working right before we entered the city.
I clenched the edge of the seat so hard my fingers ached. The guilt rose like acid in my throat. I’d dragged her into this—contract marriage or not, she hadn’t signed up for this.
The bomb was probably also timed just right. If I touched it, it might go off. The only plausible solution, with the least casualties, was that one person remained, swerved the car in the opposite direction and waited for the petrol to run out, or the bomb to go off. On the highway.
And Elena—being as smart as she is—probably already figured this out.
“Switch places with me,” I said again, lower now, but firmer. “Let me drive. If one of us has to stay behind the wheel, it’ll be me.”
“No.”
“Elena—”
“No!” She was shouting again, eyes wide and wild. “You’re not deciding that for me, you don’t get to make that choice!”
“Damn it, Elena! You need to get out of here, okay?”
“Are you insane?!” she screamed back. “The car is going over 120, Nikolai! Even if I jump now, I’ll die, and I’m not letting you die either!”
I’d never seen her like this. Not even when she fought back against Dmirti’s remarks or when she found out about her mother. This wasn’t just anger. This was desperation laced with something sharper—fear, maybe. I swallowed, looking at her pursed lips.
Love….possibly? My heart jumped.
No. Not now. That wasn’t the point. The point was she wasn’t backing down.
God, she was stubborn as hell.
I glared at her, hoping to intimidate her into agreeing. But she just met my stare, eyes blazing.
And then—suddenly—she looked away.
I blinked. She was leaning down, fiddling with something near her feet.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
No answer.
“Elena—what the hell are you doing?”
She pressed a hand to the wheel. “Hold it.”
“What?”
“Hold the wheel!”
I grabbed the steering wheel just in time to keep the car from drifting out of lane as she pushed herself down, contorting her body under the dashboard. She was doing something under the steering column.
“Elena, what the fuck—?”
She reached up, gripped the plastic cover over the fuse and wiring system, and ripped it off with both hands.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” I yelled.
“Saving our lives, dipshit!” she screamed right back. “The brakes didn’t fail on their own! Someone tampered with them! You think it’s a coincidence that this started after we crossed the border?”
My heart pounded in my ears.
“They knew we’d be taking this route,” she said. “They timed the bomb. They disabled the brakes. And we’re five minutes from the city—we need to stop this car now or we’re not the only ones who are going to die!”
I couldn’t breathe.
Of course she was right.
It wasn’t just the bomb. It was the timing. We’d refueled twenty minutes ago. The break failure hadn’t started until we were past the last town. That wasn’t a malfunction. It was a message. Someone knew exactly where we were going and how to make it hurt.
I glanced back at the console. That fucking device. Wires curled like veins. The slow, rhythmic blink of red light. It could be a timer. Or a trigger. Or both.
I should’ve seen it sooner.
God, I should’ve protected her better.
“Elena,” I said, voice rough. “You don’t have the tools for this—”
“I don’t need tools,” she snapped. “I just need your eyes on the road. Keep the wheel straight, and don’t crash us into the wire fence.”
She was feeling around the wires now, following each one carefully. Her fingers moved like she knew what she was doing.
“Elena,” I said again, lower. “How the hell do you know about car wiring?”
She glanced up at me from under the dash. “Do you think I study about making cars just for fun?”
Before I could even process that, she went back to work, and my focus snapped to the road again.
Something caught my eye.
“Shit,” I muttered.
A truck.
A massive eighteen-wheeler was up ahead, crawling onto the highway from a merging lane on the right. And just beside it—another one, going the opposite direction but veering slightly too close. We were going to be sandwiched between them like a goddamn pancake.
“Elena!” I barked. “We have a problem!”
“Yeah, no shit,” she hissed.
“We need to swerve off the road now! There's wire fencing but if we hit it at the angle—”
“We’ll flip.”
“I can handle the swerve,” I growled. “Can you handle stopping the goddamn engine?!”
She didn’t respond.
The gap between the trucks was closing. The fencing along the side was old—maybe it’d give. Maybe not. But if we clipped the edge at full speed, we’d go flying.
“Elena—now!” I shouted.
“I see it!”
She yanked a specific wire loose, sparks flying for a split second—then another—and then with a shout, she screamed:
“NOW, NIKOLAI!”
I jerked the wheel to the left, hard, the tires screeching against asphalt as I aimed for the gravel shoulder. The car fishtailed violently, but I kept control by a miracle.
The engine choked.
The power died.
We were gliding now. No fuel. No acceleration.
The car skidded into the dirt off the highway and I fought the wheel like a man possessed. One of the trucks blared its horn behind us, wind and pressure slamming into the car as we passed within feet of its roaring frame.
And then—
Beep. Beeep.
“GET OUT NOW!”