Chapter 250 - You're Not the Boss of Me

Slender fingers repeatedly tapped on the arrow down button of the elevator—as if doing so would make the car arrive faster. Katherine's heart slammed against her ribcage as she thought about the possibilities. Surely Chris wouldn't go this far, right?

Hearing heavy footsteps from the side, she turned her head and saw Damien approaching. "What are you doing here? I told you not to follow me!" she bit out, pissed that the elevator car was taking so long to arrive.

"Do you really think I would just let you leave like that? You look terrified. What the hell is going on?" Damien caught up to her and saw her pale face.

Before Katherine could answer, Styles spoke through her earpiece once again, "Queen, we have a situation. We need you down here."

"Shît. I'm taking the stairs, Styles." 

Katherine turned to the left and saw the door to the staircase. She faced Damien when she heard him following her again and snapped, "I mean it, Damien! St—"

"Don't you dare tell me to stay, Katherine, I'm not a dog and you're not the Boss of me." He hovered over her, his eyes looking dead serious.

"I don't have time for this," she huffed and sprinted down the stairs on her heels with Damien following her behind. The pair of red dress and classic black tuxedo went by in a blur as the two alighted the flight of stairs.

"Where did you park your car?" she asked.

"Basement one," he answered even while he was still unaware of the circumstances. 

As soon as they landed on the right floor, Katherine opened the door that led to the basement parking. She rushed outside, seeing Styles and Falcon on the far right of the huge parking space. There weren't a lot of cars in the area and both parking spaces of the black Aston Martin were vacant.

Without waiting for Damien, she ran towards her team. "What's the problem?" she asked as soon as she was near.

Because the luxury car was very low, Falcon couldn't fit under it so she could only lay on the cold cement next to the bumper where the explosive device was planted under it. She tilted her head at an angle and used a mirror to view the device from it. "We can't disarm it," she muttered as she tried to think of other ways on how to go about the situation.

"What do you mean you can't?" Katherine tried to bend down but she couldn't see a thing. So she turned to Styles for an explanation.

Styles was currently tapping on the tablet in his hand, biting his bottom lip as he thought about other solutions when he noticed Katherine's stare. "Look, I've been out of Castle for five years, okay? So this... " he hissed. "I've only seen this once. And I'm not sure if it's a trap." His gaze went past Katherine's shoulder and saw Damien approaching. "Uhh… Wh-What's he doing here?"

"Katherine, tell me what's going on." Damien started to become impatient that he was clueless about what was happening.

Hearing her son's voice, Falcon's hand—the one holding the mirror near the explosive device—shook. She swallowed and calmed herself down. She hadn't heard his voice in a very long time but she had no doubt that it was his even if she didn't sneak a peek. She was thankful that she was wearing a disguise at the moment.

Seeing that Katherine didn't plan on answering her lover number one, Styles raised a hand to get Damien's attention and he hesitantly told him, "There's um… There's a bomb under your car."

"A what?!" An appalled look appeared on Damien's face and Styles could only awkwardly smile at him.

Katherine could feel a headache creeping up on her as she tried to decipher what Styles just said. "Styles, what exactly is this?"

Frustrated, Styles ran his fingers through his hair and showed Katherine his tablet screen. "The detonator that Chris left in the trash? Not a detonator at all. It's only a signal tracker that allowed me to trace it back to this explosive device. That's how we found it. And this device isn't wired and connected to the car's system so it doesn't have any connections to the car at all—only that it's stuck there. But if it goes off, it could do a lot of damage."

"So what's the problem?" Katherine scanned the information on the small screen. "Why can't we remove it?"

Styles winced, "It's not that simple, Queen. If we try to remove the cover casing of the device to attempt to diffuse it, it will trigger a timer."

Katherine swallowed. This doesn't make sense. Why would Chris do something like this? If he really wanted to target Damien, there were plenty of ways to do that. He's an assassin, surely this trick wasn't necessary at all.

Damien, who was listening to them talk in front of him about a bomb under his car, was feeling so overwhelmed. "Why is there a bomb in my car? Katherine, who are these people?!"

Katherine could feel her body heat up from the rush of adrenaline. She glanced at Damien and saw the worried and shocked look on his face. She had to think of something.

A sudden idea flashed in her mind and without second thoughts, she snatched the tablet from Styles and accessed the map. "Styles, how much time do you think we have if the timer starts?"

"Two minutes? Three minutes tops? Maybe even less than two minutes?"

"Why don't we call the cops?!" Damien wondered.

Styles gasped, "Oh no popos!" 

"Fellas, we can't call in a bomb squad. It's too risky for all of us to expose ourselves here." Falcon sat up on the floor. If authorities arrive and knew about this, it will be a whole mess and Shadow might use it as a chance to get to them, considering that Shadow has ties to the government.

"I know that." Katherine didn't lift her eyes from the screen and continued to tap and zoom in on the map that was displayed before passing it back to Styles. "Which is why we need to activate the timer."

All three pairs of eyes landed on her as if she had grown another head.

Styles who had seemed to catch up on her plan wasn't sure if he was on board with it, and Falcon's brows furrowed as she studied Katherine's determined expression.

Meanwhile, Damien looked at Katherine and couldn't help but wonder who she really was. Though he had a wild guess before, seeing her act and talk differently before him was very much puzzling on top of the 'bomb-in-his-car' matter. 

Before Damien could speak, Katherine had already faced Styles and asked, "How positive are you about this information?"

"Eighty percent?" Styles grimaced. He didn't like not being sure about things and this was making him feel flighty. A beeping sound came from Styles's tablet and he cursed, "We have no time left. A security team that's not one of us is heading this way for rounds in a few minutes. We need to do something."

Katherine rotated her neck from side to side and a wickedly annoyed smile appeared on her face. "I should have gutted Chris when I had the chance earlier," she muttered under gritted teeth as she walked towards the car.

Upon hearing Katherine's words, Damien couldn't help but feel bewildered. What happened to his Kitten?