Killed at Eighteen, Billionaire Alpha at Dawn

Chapter 7

Arashi was halfway through his meal when the alarm blared, a single, loud and annoyingly piercing note that made him flinch. 

His brows furrowed into a frown as he tried to decipher what it was about, but almost as sudden as it started, the sound stopped. 

Arashi’s stomach twisted as he stood up and made his way to the door. As soon as he opened the door though, he came face to face with Rue. 

And the old man was holding a gun. 

“What's going on? Is this another test?” he asked, but Rue didn't respond. Instead he turned around, and fired a shot at a masked man Arashi had not noticed until now. 

“Come on. There are more of them in the building. We need to move fast,” was all Rue said.

Arashi matched his pace as they ran, feet pounding against the floor. 

“Who the fuck were those people?” he snapped. 

“Intruders. Assassins hired to kill you, obviously.”

A snarl ripped past Arashi's lips. 

Rue's lips parted with a response, but before he could say anything, more masked men who seemed to have appeared out of thin air surrounded them. 

“Protect yourself!” was all Rue managed to say to Arashi before he got lost in the crowd of masked men. 

Apprehension licked all the way down from Arashi's neck to his spine. 

For a short, glorious second, Arashi tried to convince himself that this was probably just another one of Rue's test. That the old man was probably trying to teach him a lesson he overlooked. 

He didn't have time to entertain the thought though. Pain seared across Arashi's cheek, hot and immediate. One of the masked men had moved in to attack.

Arashi's instincts kicked in. He moved away from the masked stranger as fast as an asp, his hands curling into fists as a thrill from his days as a fighter returned to his body. 

The attacker charged. 

And Arashi met him halfway. His punch connected with flesh, and his kick should have broken the man's ribs. 

But instead of slowing down like he expected, the stranger moved on. Another flare of pain snapped through his body, and Arashi's body rushed to meet the floor as his legs gave out on him. 

He was back to his feet immediately, of course, but he was too late. 

Arashi was now surrounded by six men. At least. 

The thrill in his blood instantly curled in his stomach, and his voice was rough when he spoke. 

“Who the fuck are you guys?”

As if on cue, the attackers moved as one. 

Arashi spun in a circle, a leg out as he tried to create some space between himself and the masked men. 

His kick connected with one of the men and he went down, but another took his place, grabbing Arashi's ankle and slamming him into a wall. 

Arashi's teeth sank down on his tongue, and blood filled his mouth. 

Rage rushed into his veins. He sprung back up, eyes narrowed in concentration as the masked men circled him again.

A arm shot past Arashi, and he grabbed it by the wrist and bicep, locking and twisting until the masked man grunted in pain. 

Without losing momentum, Arashi whirled him around, and the man careened into a second attacker, hard enough that the two men went tumbling to the ground. 

Two down. Less than a dozen to go. 

Arashi's leapt away from the glint of a knife, narrowly avoiding crashing into the wall. 

The man made a move to attack again, but there was a sudden blur to the left, and suddenly someone appeared out of nowhere. 

Arashi barely had time to register that fact that the person was a woman. There was a gun in her hand too, and she didn't look at Arashi as she whirled around and fired rapid shots, obliterating the rest of the attackers within seconds. 

Then she looked at him.

“We need to leave this building. Now!”

“What the fuck? Who are you?” Arashi asked. 

“Selene. Are you a fast runner?” she looked at him up and down as the question slipped past her lips, and Arashi's brows furrowed into a frown. 

Then Rue, who had disappeared earlier, appeared out of nowhere. 

“Move, Arashi!” he yelled and started to run down the hallway. 

The woman, Selene, followed immediately after, and Arashi had no choice than to go after them. 

He ran past Selene and caught up with Rue in seconds. 

“You told me everyone thought I was dead. So how did these men find me? The security here is supposed to be tight, right?”

Rue said nothing. His expression remained calm, even though Arashi's questions were ones he had been asking himself since the attack started.

The facility was in a secluded, extremely remote area. The building had been there for years, and the location was secure and hidden, known by only a few people. 

And by few, Rue could count on one hand the number of people who were aware that the facility existed.

“You know what, forget it. You don't have to tell me anything. Just keep acting and treating me like I am goddamned kid! How the hell am I supposed to learn or know anything if you won't tell me what I want to know!”

Rue stopped walking as something dawned on him, and his arm shot out to smack Arashi on the chest, forcing him to stop too. 

“Arashi. This was not an intruders attack. I think it's part of your father's plan.”

For a moment, Arashi didn't know if he wanted to believe the man or not. But he remembered how crazy Cassian had sounded in the clip, and all of a sudden, a part of him was wondering if Rue was telling the truth. 

“What if it was not him though? Cassian is dead. You think he sent some masked men to come and try to kill me?” 

Rue met Arashi's gaze, cold eyes boring into fiery ones. “Yes. If Cassian sent those men, he knew that there was a possibility of you dying at the hand of those assassins. Your father doesn't care about your life, Arashi. He cares about what you can do, and your succession as his son.”

Arashi didn't know how to feel about that. If Rue was right and Cassian had orchestrated this attack…his father was a psycho. 

His lips parted like he wanted to say as much to Rue, but footsteps sounded behind them. 

More masked men, most definitely. 

“Come on. We will talk about this later. We still need to get the hell out of here. You have to keep going, I'll catch up with you in a bit.”

Then the old man turned down a hallway and left Arashi behind. 

Rue was troubled. 

A part of him wondered why Cassian had an attack of this scale planned. The attackers knew the entry code to every room, and they knew exactly where everyone was.

What if the boy has actually died before he got to him? What then?

His face didn't betray what he was thinking, but deep down, Rue’s composure started to crack. 

How many more traps did Cassian have planned? When were they going to happen?

Would Arashi survive the next attack?

To Rue, it almost felt as if Cassian was testing him alongside his son, and the thought was like having curdled milk settled at the bottom of his stomach. 

So damn unpleasant. 

But that was exaxtly who Cassian was, and it wasn't Rue’s job to ask questions. It was, however, his job to get some important files out of the building to avoid them getting into the wrong hands. 

Arashi watched until Rue was out of sight, and he ran a frustrated hand through his hair. 

Rue was…

Someone slammed into him, and Arashi's body connected with the wall. Something cracked in his body at the impact, and Arashi bit down on this tongue so hard that blood filled his mouth again. 

By the time he stood up, he was facing about ten masked men. His brain caught up to him in that moment, and he realised that he should have kept running.

The men moved at once, and Arashi, for the first time in his life, was scared of a fight. 

He was outnumbered, and the men delivered crushing blows that were definitely meant to break and then kill him. 

When a particular brutal kick caught his ear, Arashi went down. There was a large, monotonous ringing in his ears, and the sound drowned everything else. 

One of his attackers gave what seemed to be a command, and Arashi saw the sharp edge of a knife as the one closest to him started moved closer. 

Arashi wanted to move, to run from the sharp glint of the knife, but his ribs hurt like hell, and he was pretty sure he had a broken ankle.

All of a sudden though, Selene descended on the men.

Arashi watched through pain lidded eyes as the woman who saved him earlier, the woman he had completely forgotten about, fought. 

She was like a tempest. The attackers stood no chance against her, and by the time she bent down to help Arashi up, the men were down. 

All of them. 

Arashi's head spun as they ran, and the last thought on his mind was about the woman whose arms were wrapped around his waist. 

Who the hell was Selene, and why did she save his life?