Dimitri hurried back to the car just as the drizzle thickened into something less forgiving—no longer gentle taps against his skin but a steady, needling rain. The driver straightened in his seat when the door opened.
"Sir, you're back?" he asked, surprise edging his voice.
"Yeah... let's go," Dimitri muttered, water dripping from his hair and coat as he sank into the seat, already soaked through.
The engine rumbled to life, and the wipers swept across the windshield in steady arcs. The driver set his hands on the wheel, pressed lightly on the pedal, and the car eased forward. His attention snapped to the road at once, posture sharpening with the motion.
Once more, the vehicle was on the road. But before they could pull too far ahead, Dimitri turned to the window. Rain hammered the glass in relentless sheets, blurring the world outside—but not enough to hide the ambulance. His eyes locked onto it, his attention fixed there as though the rest of the world had gone silent.
With one last glance, he blinked—and they were gone.
Niq, the driver, offered Dimitri a rough explanation of the incident. This wasn't the first time—far from it. It was closer to the hundred-and-seventy-fifth, though no one was really keeping count anymore. These events were supposed to be rare, but lately they'd been piling up. This one marked the sixth occurrence this month alone.
Most of them came from disasters that left men broken—sent to hospitals, patched up, then shoved back to work or quietly laid off. And when they couldn't return, someone new was brought in to fill the gap, as though nothing had happened. It was a cycle, and an ugly one.
But this time, there was a body. A dead one. Questions would start circling, whispers turning into talk, talk into noise. If the companies weren't careful—and from what Niq knew, they had already been anything but—this could spark something far louder than outrage. And it was only going to get worse from here.
"I've heard of things like this happening," Dimitri said quietly. "Can't the local authorities bring it to the media?"
Niq shook his head. Even the locals didn't have that kind of power. The few who tried managed to push the issue only so far—never far enough.
"It's funny, isn't it?" he muttered. "With enough money, nothing can stop you…"
That line struck a nerve in Dimitri. The corruption, the bribery—it wasn't just rumor. It was real. At least, that was how Niq told it.