FLUENT IN FORBIDDEN — CHAPTER TEN

"The clock has struck three, the coffee is cold, and the shadows are beginning to speak. Welcome back to the desk of The Night Writer, where the stories are brewed in the dark. Tonight, we aren't just running from the past; we are racing toward a future that is currently being written in blood."

​The engine of the Aston Martin didn't just roar; it screamed, a high-octane wail that echoed off the damp limestone walls of the coastal road. I had the pedal pushed so far into the floorboard that I felt the vibration in my marrow, the steering wheel fighting me like a living thing as the tires hunted for grip on the rain-slicked asphalt.

​"Mikael, they’re gaining! God, they’re actually gaining!" Julian shouted, his head whipping back toward the rear window, his face pale in the strobe-light flashes of the passing streetlamps.

​In the rearview mirror, the twin predatory eyes of Mansour’s black G-Wagons were closing the gap with terrifying mechanical indifference. They didn't care about the rain or the hairpin turns that dropped off into a thousand-foot abyss of churning sea. They were armored, heavy, and fueled by a bruised ego that was far more dangerous than any debt. To Mansour, this wasn't just a pursuit; it was a reclamation of property.
​"Layla, get down! Now!" I commanded.

​The girl didn't hesitate, tucking herself into the cramped footwell just as a deafening crack shattered the world. The side mirror disintegrated into a cloud of silver shards.

​"They're shooting?!" Julian’s voice hit a frantic, jagged pitch. "In a residential zone? My brother will lose his mind! The optics—the scandal—he can't cover this up!"

​"Your brother isn't the one pulling the trigger anymore, Julian," I gritted out, my knuckles white as I wrenched the wheel to the left, the rear end of the car skidding dangerously close to the cliff’s edge. "This is Mansour’s 'inflection.' He’s done negotiating. He’s moved on to the final edit."

​The rain turned into a deluge, blurring the world into a smear of grey and black. I saw the port gates ahead—not the main entrance with the polished brass and the bored guards, but the service pier, a graveyard of rusted cranes and salt-bitten concrete where the fuel trucks entered.

​"Julian, the glove box! Not the key—the small black remote with the red tape. Find it!"
​He fumbled, his fingers slick with sweat, cursing under his breath as the G-Wagons rammed our rear bumper. The impact sent a jolt of lightning through my spine. "This? The one that looks like a garage opener?"

​"Wait for my signal... wait... Now!"

​Julian pressed it. Ahead of us, the heavy automated bollards—the ones I’d spent six months 'maintaining' for the port authority as part of my deep-cover translation contract—hissed and rose from the asphalt like steel teeth. I swerved the Aston through the narrow gap with an inch to spare, the scent of burning rubber filling the cabin.

​The first G-Wagon wasn't so lucky.
​It hit the steel bollards at eighty miles per hour. The sound of the impact was a thunderclap of twisting metal and exploding glass that seemed to shake the very foundations of the pier. The SUV flipped, a three-ton beast reduced to a crumpled soda can in a heartbeat. The second SUV braked hard, tires screaming in protest as it fishtailed wildly, slamming into a stack of shipping containers with a bone-jarring crunch.

​"Did you... did you just kill them?" Julian whispered, his eyes wide, staring back at the orange glow of the wreckage reflected in the rain.

​"I gave them a translation of the word 'Stop,'" I said, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. "Whether they survived the reading isn't my concern. We have three minutes before the port security realizes this wasn't an accident."

​I killed the lights and rolled the car into the deep, velvet shadow of a rusted freighter. We moved in silence then—three ghosts slipping through the fog and onto a battered, salt-stained fishing trawler named The Odyssey. It looked like a relic, but I knew the engine had been rebuilt to outrun the coast guard.

​As the diesel engine chugged to life and we drifted away from the dock, the adrenaline began to cool, leaving behind a jagged, freezing reality. The silence of the open water was louder than the gunfire had been. Julian stood on the deck, his expensive silk shirt clinging to his skin, watching the lights of his city—his kingdom—fade into the mist. He looked at the heavy blue folder in his hand, the one he’d snatched from his brother’s desk in the chaos.

​"Mikael," he said, his voice hollow, barely audible over the slap of the waves against the hull. "I thought these were just ledgers. I thought it was just the usual filth—bank accounts, offshore holdings, shipping routes for contraband."

​I stepped beside him, the cold sea spray dampening my hair. "What is it, Julian? What did you find?"

​He opened the folder. Under the dim, flickering yellow light of the deck lamp, I saw it. It wasn't just numbers. There were long-lens photographs of high-ranking officials in compromising positions. There were detailed schematics of the national power grid’s fail-safes. And then, there was the list—a roll call of treason that included the Minister of Defense, the head of the central bank, and two foreign heads of state.

​"This isn't just money laundering," Julian breathed, the paper trembling in his hand. "This is a blueprint for a coup. My brother wasn't just selling Layla to Mansour to save the family business. He was selling the keys to the entire country. Mansour isn't a businessman; he’s a kingmaker."

​I looked at the files, then back at the dark horizon where the sweeping fingers of searchlights were already beginning to comb the water. The stakes hadn't just changed; they had reached orbit. This wasn't a family feud anymore. It was a countdown.

​"Then we aren't just fugitives anymore, Julian," I said, my hand finding the small of his back, feeling the tension that ran through him like a high-voltage wire. "We’re the only people left who know the truth. We aren't just carrying a folder; we’re carrying a detonator."

​Julian looked at Layla, who was shivering under a grease-stained blanket in the galley, her eyes vacant with trauma. Then he looked back at me, and I saw the "posh disaster"—the man who cared about vintage wine and tailored suits—die right there on the deck. In his place was someone harder, someone forged in the fire of the last hour.

​"They’ll kill us for this," Julian said, a strange, dark resolve settling over his features. "They’ll sink this boat and bury us in the trench if they have to."

​"Let them try," I replied. "I’ve spent a decade translating secrets for monsters. It’s about time I started telling some of my own."

​Julian looked out at the black expanse of the ocean, toward the international waters that offered no real safety, only a different kind of danger. He gripped the railing until his knuckles turned white.

​"Then I guess we better start learning a new language," Julian said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, icy whisper. "How do you say 'Total War' in French, Mikael? Because I think we’re going to need to speak it fluently by sunrise."

​I didn't answer. I just watched the horizon, knowing that somewhere out there, the man we were running from was already making the call that would turn the world against us.

​"Daylight is coming to claim the quiet, but these words stay with you. The hunter has become the prey, and the secret they carry is heavy enough to sink a kingdom. Will they reach the shore, or will the sea swallow the truth?

​If you enjoyed this journey into the midnight hours, leave a heart or a tip to keep the candles burning. The next chapter is written in a language even I fear to speak. ​Sleep well—if you can. — The Night Writer."