He Didn’t Kidnap Me. Not Exactly novel Chapter 298

The hallway exploded into motion behind us.

I ran without any real plan beyond away, Aria just ahead of me, Archer somewhere at my other side for exactly as long as it took the first shout to ring out – and then, somewhere in the blur of turns and

slamming footsteps, he simply wasn’t there anymore.

I didn’t have time to process that properly. I had time to register it, file‘ it away as one more piece of

evidence, and keep moving.

More of them poured in from every direction, dark uniforms cutting between columns and archways, shouting to each other in short, clipped bursts. We burst straight through the edge of the courtyard ceremony without slowing down, and I clipped a low table stacked with ritual items hard enough to send half of it crashing across the stone floor behind me. Someone yelled. I didn’t look back to see who.

A hand caught the back of my gown a few strides later, fingers closing tight into fabric, and I felt the whole disguise tear loose in one violent motion, ripping free at the seam and leaving me half–exposed and considerably faster without it. I kept running. Priorities.

The base blurred past in fragments; a hallway lined with framed portraits, a courtyard corner thick with incense smoke, a narrow passage that smelled like gun oil. I bashed into things I couldn’t name and didn’t apologize to, my body colliding with corners and doorframes because dodging cleanly had apparently never been part of my skill set and certainly wasn’t starting tonight.

One man rounded a corner directly into my path, and out of pure desperate instinct I grabbed the nearest object – an ornate incense burner still smoking gently on its stand – and swung it directly into his shins. He went down hard, cursing, tangled in his own robe, and I kept going without a shred of guilt.

Another lunged for my arm and got a mouthful of my elbow instead, purely by accident, purely because my limbs had stopped listening to any coberent strategy and were just flailing in whatever direction seemed least likely to get me caught.

He staggered back, and somewhere behind me Aria’s laugh cracked out, sharp and disbelieving, gone again)

just as fast.

We kept moving. Somehow.

1:39 am P PP

Chapter 298

Then the hallway narrowed, funneling us toward a dead end – a heavy door, closed, set into the wall at the

far side of a shrinking space with no visible way around it.

I realized it half a second too late to turn back.

Men closed in from behind, cutting off the only route we’d come from, and I spun toward Aria, breathless,

desperate.

“Aria, what do w

I turned in

swallowe

step a

?” I asked and she didn’t respond.

circle, and she was simply gone, vanished into the same chaos that had already

g me alone in a dead–end hallway with six men closing the distance one unhurried

1. d. “I’m going to have fun with you before we take you to the master.”

low and ugly. “There’s no way to run now. You think this place is a playground?”

g away, heart slamming, until my spine hit solid metal.

anical chime sounded, small and polite, entirely wrong for the moment, and the floor dropped out under my balance as the door swung inward behind me. My own hand, apparently, had landed flat nst a sensor I hadn’t even registered was there. /

fell backward through it.

The men surged forward, reaching, and I scrambled upright fast enough to surprise even myself, slamming my palm against a large button set into the interior wall.

The door slid shut with a heavy mechanical hiss, sealing itself just as the nearest hand grabbed for empty

air on the other side.

Silence.

I stood the

breath

, blessed quiet like it was the finest air I’d ever

anger had paused. It kept slamming away regardless.

urned around properly to take in wherever 1 d

2/3

11:40 am PP

Chapter 298

-landed

And froze.

Cells.

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