Hot Drivers - S01 E63

Story 4 days ago

Hot Drivers - S01 E63

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 63

Hot Driver - SEASON EPISODE 63

He listened for a moment, then nodded to himself. “Good. We execute the plan in two weeks. Not a day sooner.”

He ended the call and returned his attention to the maid, a slow, unsettling smile spreading across his face as she continued serving breakfast, entirely unaware of the way he watched her.
—

{Este’s Restaurant – Morning}

Hannah walked through the door, offering Celeste a small, tired greeting.

Celeste studied her for a moment, immediately sensing something off. “Are you alright? You don’t seem yourself.”

“Just period cramps,” Hannah said quickly, forcing a smile. “That’s why I couldn’t come in yesterday. I’m sorry.”

Celeste accepted the explanation, too preoccupied with the morning rush to press further, and gestured toward the five new hires already gathering near the kitchen entrance. “We’ve got extra hands today, thankfully. Get them settled in, would you?”

Hannah nodded, moving through her tasks with mechanical precision, dread sitting heavy and cold in her stomach the entire time.
Eventually, she made her way to the back of the restaurant, where the large water supply tank sat quietly against the wall.

She pulled the small folded packet from her pocket, staring down at the white powder inside, hands trembling.

I could just throw it away, she thought desperately. I could just get rid of it right now and pretend none of this ever happened.

Her phone buzzed sharply in her pocket.

Unknown: I’m watching you right now. Pour it in the water, or you die on the spot.

A small, precise red dot appeared suddenly on her chest, steady and unmistakable.

Hannah’s breath caught, terror flooding through her so completely her vision blurred with tears. With shaking hands, she tore the packet open and poured the powder into the water supply, watching it dissolve instantly, invisibly, into the clear liquid.

.

She turned and fled from the back room, tears streaming freely down her face, and forced herself to compose her expression by the time she reached the front of the restaurant again.

Within minutes, the kitchen was in full swing, dishes prepared using the contaminated water, plates carried out to eager, unsuspecting customers filling every table.

{Ivy Fashion Empire – Ivory’s Office – Noon}

Duane arrived with lunch, setting it carefully on her desk, and Ivory looked up at him with something soft and vulnerable in her expression that immediately caught his attention.

“I need to say something,” she said quietly, standing from her chair. “And I don’t need you to respond right away. I just need to say it.”

Duane’s brow furrowed slightly, but he nodded, giving her his full attention.

“I love you,” Ivory said, the words tumbling out before she could second-guess them further. “I don’t know when it happened. Maybe it was the coffee. Maybe it was you carrying me home when I was too drunk to walk. Maybe it was the way you looked at me like I was just a woman instead of a fortune, right from the very first day. You’re the only one I see now, Duane. The only person whose voice I listen for in a crowded room. The only lips I want on mine. I built walls so high I thought nothing could ever get through them, and you didn’t even try to climb them — you just made me want to tear them down myself.”

Duane stood frozen, stunned into complete silence, his mind racing to catch up with everything pouring out of her.

“I really love you Duane, I’ve sworn off this entirely, sworn off love with my mentality that all men are the same but you just came to proof that wrong, when I started getting attached, I thought it was just a mere likeness that’d fade away but instead it kept growing, I’ve felt you the very first day I saw you in the mansion, it was love at first sight, I had secretly admired your handsome face and told myself you are a mere commoner, I thought if I kept believing that, the feelings will fade away, but I was wrong, seeing you everyday, kissing your lips everyday, breathing in your cologne everyday, you being cold and unbothered made me drawn to you, so much, I don’t wanna turn back again, so much, I want to keep seeing only you, so much I want your voice to be the first I hear when I wake up, your handsome face the first I see in my dream. I know you don’t feel the same”

Ivory paused. sniffling and hiccuping, so much tears flowing down her cheeks.

“I don’t need an answer right now,” Ivory continued, voice trembling slightly. I know you might need time to figure out what you feel. That’s fine. But please — don’t make me wait too long. If you don’t feel it, tell me soon. Don’t let me sit here hoping for something that isn’t coming. I’d rather know the truth quickly than be strung along gently.”

another round of Tears slipped free before she could stop them, and Duane, still reeling, crossed the room and pulled her into his arms without a word.

She cried against his shoulder, her heart hammering wildly, uncertain and terrified and relieved all at once simply to have finally said it out loud.

Duane held her tightly, his own thoughts a tangled mess he hadn’t fully sorted through yet, though something in his chest ached fiercely at the sound of her crying, at the rawness of everything she’d just handed him.

“I hear you,” he finally murmured into her hair, unable to offer more than that just yet. “I hear you, Ivory.”

—

{Este’s Restaurant – Afternoon}

The screaming started less than twenty minutes after the first dishes went out.

A man at a corner table doubled over suddenly, clutching his stomach, vomit spilling violently onto the floor before he could even reach the restroom. Beside him, a woman began coughing hard, blood flecking her lips with each violent hack.

Within minutes, chaos had consumed the entire dining room. Twenty customers writhed in various states of agony — five spitting blood, ten vomiting uncontrollably, five more rolling on the floor, coughing so hard their whole bodies convulsed with the effort.

“Someone call an ambulance!” a voice screamed from somewhere in the crowd.

Celeste rushed between tables, panic overtaking her completely, trying desperately to help anyone she could, though she had no idea what was happening or how to stop it.

“Hannah!” she shouted, searching frantically for her. “Hannah, where are you?!”

Hannah was nowhere to be found.

Sirens wailed outside minutes later, ambulances screeching to a halt, paramedics rushing in with stretchers, loading the worst-affected victims — several of them already unconscious, barely clinging to life — and rushing them back out toward the hospital.

Police arrived close behind, moving through the chaos with grim efficiency.

“Ma’am, you need to come with us,” an officer said, approaching Celeste directly.

“What? Why? I don’t understand what’s happening—”

“You’re being arrested on suspicion of mass food poisoning,” the officer said flatly, already reaching for handcuffs. “You have the right to remain silent. and this restaurant will be closed down immediately”

“WHAT?” Celeste’s voice cracked with disbelief and terror. “I didn’t do anything! I would never hurt my customers, please, you have to believe me—”

The cuffs clicked shut around her wrists regardless, and her five new employees were rounded up alongside her, each of them protesting their innocence as they were marched out of the restaurant one by one, past the wreckage of overturned chairs and half-eaten meals, past the pools of vomit and blood staining the once-immaculate floor.

Celeste’s restaurant — the dream she’d built with her own two hands, the future she’d finally believed in — collapsed around her in a matter of minutes, and all she could do was stumble along in handcuffs, tears streaming down her face, utterly unable to comprehend how everything had gone so catastrophically wrong so fast.

TBC