Hot Driver - S01 E57

Story 6 days ago

Hot Driver - S01 E57

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 57

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Road – Night.

Duane turned fully around in his seat, staring back at her, something unreadable moving across his face.

Ivory threw her face toward the window instead, unwilling to meet his eyes, her jaw set stubbornly despite the tremor still lingering in her hands.

Duane just smirked, faint and knowing, and turned back around, igniting the engine back to life without another word for a moment. He pulled the car forward smoothly, merging back into traffic like nothing had happened at all.

“For the record,” he said finally, eyes flicking to the mirror, “those pictures weren’t something I asked for. They helped me remember something, actually. Something I’d completely lost from that night at the bar.”

Ivory turned to look at him now, confusion cutting through her lingering anger. “What do you mean?”

“Beauty drugged my drink,” Duane said flatly. “That night. I don’t remember much, but seeing those photos — it all came back. She was trying to—” he paused, jaw tightening, “she was trying to rape me, Ivory.”

Ivory’s mouth fell open, fury igniting instantly, replacing every trace of her earlier hurt. “WHAT? I’m going to find her. I’m going to deal with her myself, I swear—”

Duane let out a short laugh, shaking his head.

“Why are you laughing?” Ivory demanded, indignant. “This isn’t funny, Duane!”

“I’m laughing,” he said, still grinning slightly, “because at least she didn’t actually manage to do it. Small mercies.”

Ivory glared at him, though some of the tension had bled out of her shoulders, the anger settling into something more manageable now that she understood what she’d actually seen.

“I’m still going to deal with her,” she muttered.

“I have no doubt,” Duane said, and drove on into the night.

Rodriguez Mansion – Ruins – Same Night

The search and recovery team finally breached what remained of the mansion’s collapsed structure, moving carefully through the smoking debris under harsh floodlights.

A shout went up from deep within the wreckage.

Two bodies. Burned beyond recognition, charred and unrecognizable, curled together near what had once been the kitchen.

Reporters surged against the police tape the moment word filtered out, cameras flashing rapid-fire, capturing every gruesome detail of the recovery effort.

Within minutes, headlines were already spreading across every major outlet in Creston City.

CONFIRMED: Two Bodies Recovered From Rodriguez Mansion Ruins.

TRAGEDY STRIKES: Tyler Rodriguez Presumed Dead in Explosion.

The images circulated fast and mercilessly, captions dripping with speculation, none of the outlets pausing to consider whose lives they were carelessly turning into content.

Morales Mansion – Same Night
Maeve finally stepped through her own front door for the first time in hours, ignoring Ron entirely as she staggered past him toward the staircase, dried tear tracks still visible on her face.

Ron glanced up from his desk, noting the swollen lymph nodes along her neck, the unsteady way she moved — but said nothing, too absorbed in his own scheming to bother with concern.

He’s mine to deal with, Ron thought, staring at a sketch of the Empire’s floor plan he’d somehow acquired, tracing potential angles of approach with a pen. Duane Brooke won’t know what hit him.

Maeve reached her room and collapsed onto the bed, curling in on herself, trying desperately not to cry again and failing entirely.

Tyler’s dead body was found in the burnt house.

The words looped endlessly through her mind, each repetition cutting deeper than the last.

She pulled out her phone with trembling hands, searching once more for the name that had haunted her all evening — Chester Ben — scrolling through page after page of irrelevant results, nothing matching, nothing real.

Frustrated, she fired off a message to her private search agent instead.

Maeve: Find everything you can on a man named Chester Ben. Goes by “C.” Urgent.

Her phone buzzed almost immediately after sending it — but not from her agent.

Curtis: Did you like the gift I sent you? Your lover’s gone now. You’re mine. Come to me tomorrow. I need to fûck you.

Maeve’s blood ran cold, disgust and fury rising fast.

Maeve: You’re insane if you think I’m coming anywhere near you after this.

The reply came instantly.

Curtis: I have every recording of us together. Every single one. Show up tomorrow, or the whole city sees exactly what you’ve been doing behind Ron’s back.

Maeve stared at the screen, hands shaking, trapped entirely by her own recklessness.

Alice’s Private Residence – Same Night

Alice sat in her study, phone pressed to her ear, finishing a quiet, careful conversation with her son.

“Just keep your head down,” she said. “I’ll handle everything from this end. You don’t need to get involved.”

She ended the call and set the phone down, exhaling slowly — only for it to buzz again almost immediately.

C_Dawg: I’m giving you two weeks, Alice. Show me my daughter, or you know exactly what I’m capable of. I’ll burn you down with your own house if I have to.

Alice’s hand tightened around the phone, her carefully composed expression cracking for just a moment, something close to fear flashing behind her eyes.

.She swallowed hard, staring at the message for a long time before finally setting the phone face-down on her desk, her mind already racing through options, none of them good.

Celeste’s New Residence – Same Night

Luis paced the kitchen, phone in hand, dialing Hazel’s number for what had to be the tenth time in the last hour.

Straight to voicemail again.

“She’s still not picking up,” he said, worry creasing his young face.

“Luis,” Celeste said gently, plating dinner in her warm, medium-sized kitchen, “you need to calm down. She’s likely with her family right now, dealing with something serious. Give her space.”

“But what if something happened to her too?”

“If something happened, we would have heard about it,” Celeste said firmly, though her own concern flickered briefly across her face. “Sit down. Eat something. Stop pestering the poor girl’s phone.”

Luis sighed heavily and finally sat, though he kept the phone visible on the table beside his plate, watching it like it might ring any second.

Creston State Hospital – An Hour Later

Abigail remained unconscious in her hospital bed, the room quiet except for the steady beep of monitors, her parents having stepped out briefly for coffee, leaving Hazel curled up asleep in one of the chairs nearby, exhaustion finally catching up with her.

The door creaked open slowly.
A figure entered, hood pulled low, cap shadowing every feature, moving with quiet, deliberate caution toward the bed.

He reached up and pulled the cap back.

Tyler.

He took Abigail’s hand gently in both of his, leaning close, whispering her name softly against her ear.

“Abigail. Baby, it’s me. I’m here. Wake up for me.”

Her eyelids fluttered.

Then opened.

“Tyler?” she rasped, disbelief flooding her face.

Hazel jolted awake at the sound, blinking rapidly before her eyes landed on the impossible sight in front of her. “TYLER?!”

The commotion drew a nurse rushing in, who froze in the doorway, equally stunned. Moments later, Arthur and Diana returned from the hallway, coffee cups nearly slipping from their hands at the sight before them.

Duane and Ivory arrived just seconds after, having just returned from the mansion, and stopped dead in the doorway.

“Is he a ghost?” Hazel whispered, staring wide-eyed.

The doctor rushed in to check Abigail’s vitals, running through a series of quick assessments, his own expression caught somewhere between professional composure and genuine astonishment.

“She’s completely stable,” he announced finally. “Perfectly fine. I’ll process her discharge immediately.”

The moment the words left his mouth, Abigail threw herself out of the bed and into Tyler’s arms, legs curling around his waist as he caught her easily, both of them kissing with a desperation that ignored the entire room watching them.

“MY INNOCENT EYES!” Hazel shrieked, slapping both hands over her face while everyone else laughed, tension finally breaking after the day’s chaos.

A few minutes later, once Abigail had been properly discharged and the room had settled, Tyler explained himself to the gathered family.

“I’d gone out to get Abigail’s favorite wine,” he said. “I was still in the car when I saw the news alert about the explosion. I knew immediately something wasn’t right — that someone had done this deliberately. I panicked. I thought awhoever did it might come after me next if they knew I’d survived, so I went into hiding until I could figure out who was responsible.”

He turned to Abigail, taking her ahands in his, pressing a soft kiss to each knuckle. “I’m sorry. I never meant to put you through that kind of fear. I promise you, I will never make you cry like that again.”

He turned to the rest of the family next, expression sobering further. “And I owe all of you an apology too. For everything that led to the divorce in the first place. I let outside noise nearly destroy the best thing in my life. That won’t happen again.”

Abigail’s eyes shone with tears, though this time they were tears of pure relief. She hadn’t lost her baby. She hadn’t lost her husband. After everything, she still had both.

They filed out of the ward together, Tyler promising to take full care of Abigail as they headed toward his car, still parked safely blocks away from the destroyed mansion.

“I’m heading to my own residence,” Ivory announced, and Arthur, exhausted and relieved beyond argument, simply nodded, letting it go without protest.

The Bennett family loaded into their own car, and Hazel finally checked her phone, wincing at the sheer number of missed calls from Luis stacked in her notifications.

She fired off a quick texta immediately.

Hazel: Sorry! Crazy night. Abigail’s fine, long story. Talk tomorrow!

Abigail’s Mansion – Same Night

Tyler insisted on cooking dinner himself, carrying Abigail around on his back the entire time he worked, refusing to let her walk unnecessarily despite her protests that she was perfectly capable.

“I just found out I still have you,” he said, stirring a pot one-handed while she clung to his shoulders. “Let me spoil you a little longer.”

They ate together at the small kitchen table, laughing over nothing in particular, and afterward retreated upstairs, curling together in bed, trading slow kisses and quiet affection long into the night, grateful simply to still have each other.