FOURTEEN
JULIAN
“Julian!”
The sound of Olivia’s scream tears straight through me. The impact throws us forward, the seatbelt biting deep into my chest as tires screech across asphalt. The car lurches violently sideways.
“Hold on!” I fight the steering wheel with both hands, my muscles straining against the spin. The SUV drops back for half a second, but then it comes again. The bastard isn’t trying to scare us. He’s trying to kill us.
Metal crunches against metal as the second hit lands even harder.
The car fishtails. Traffic erupts around us in a chaos of blaring horns and scattering vehicles.
My pulse pounds like a war drum in my ears.
Beside me, Olivia grips the door handle with one hand and her stomach with the other. My jaw tightens until it aches.
“Marcus!”
“I’m here.” His voice explodes through the speakers.
“I’ve got you, Sir.”
The SUV swings into the fast lane next to us, and for a split second, I catch a glimpse of the driver. Male. Baseball cap. Sunglasses. It isn’t Kieran. It is a hired piece of shit. Of course Kieran wouldn’t do this himself. Coward.
The attacker violently jerks his wheel toward us, swerving out of his lane to broadside Olivia’s passenger door. My heart stops dead.
“No!”
I jerk the wheel away to avoid the collision, but the sudden movement sends our rear tires skidding.
The car fishtails violently, sliding sideways across the road until the passenger side is completely exposed, leaving her defenseless against the oncoming nose of the attacker.
The SUV surges forward again, roaring straight for Olivia’s door.
At the exact same moment, Marcus’s vehicle barrels into the gap, angling his nose toward our rear passenger door to shield Olivia from the direct impact.
The driver of the SUV slams on his brakes, his tires shrieking in protest as he tries to halt the heavy vehicle.
It isn’t enough. The front of the SUV plows hard into the back of Marcus’s vehicle with a deafening crunch of metal.
The brutal force sends his heavy vehicle jolting violently forward.
Marcus’s front-end slams straight into our rear door, the secondary collision exploding through the passenger side.
Time slows down to a crawl. Olivia’s eyes widen. My hands tighten around the wheel until my knuckles go white. Everything inside me narrows down to one single thought. Protect her. Protect them.
The crushing force throws us sideways, slamming Olivia’s head hard against the side window, the glass shattering in a deafening roar around her.
The world spins out of control as our tires lose all traction, sending us skidding wildly across the road.
The seatbelts lock tight, biting deep into my chest and bruising hard against her skin as we grind to a violent halt on the pavement.
White-hot pain tears through my upper body, and then everything stops.
Silence. A horrible, suffocating silence.
For a second I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t move. The sharp smell of smoke fills the cabin, and my ears ring with a high, steady buzz. Somewhere outside, distant people are shouting, but none of it matters. I turn toward Olivia, my throat going dry.
“Olivia.”
Her head rests lifelessly against the seat. A thin line of blood trails down from her temple, and her eyes are closed tight. No. No. No. My hands shake uncontrollably as I reach across the console for her.
Nothing. My chest caves inward. Every single nightmare from the warehouse crashes into me at once. Not again. I cup her face in my palms.
“Olivia.”
A small, weak sound escapes her lips, and then her eyes slowly flutter open.
“Julian?” Her voice is barely a whisper, but she’s awake. She’s here.
I drag in a shaky, uneven breath. “You scared the hell out of me.”
Her gaze moves around the wrecked interior of the car, confusion clouding her expression. Then her hand suddenly flies straight to her stomach. The movement punches every last bit of air from my lungs.
The baby.
A desperate, silent prayer tears through my mind. Please, God, please let the baby be safe.
Tears fill her eyes. “Julian...”
I grab her hand immediately, squeezing tight. “Hey. Look at me.” She forces her eyes to mine, pure terror staring back at me. It is the exact same terror clawing through my own chest.
“What if something happened?” The words crack apart as she speaks.
I press her hand harder against mine. “Our baby is okay.” I don’t know that. Not yet. But I need her to believe it. I need to believe it.
Outside, sirens are approaching, growing louder by the second. Doors slam and heavy footsteps pound against the road. A security guard reaches the driver’s side window.
“Sir!” Marcus is at my side, trying to yank open my door.
“I’m fine,” I snap, my focus never leaving Olivia’s pale face.
“Help Olivia. She’s hurt.”
“The medics are already here, sir.”
Another guard, John, who was with Marcus, appears beside Olivia’s door while paramedics rush toward us. My door is finally pried open from the outside, and fresh air rushes into the smoke-filled cabin.
“Sir, we need to get you out.”
“No.” I point directly at Olivia, forcing the medic to blink. “Her first.”
“Julian,” her fingers tighten around mine. “I’m okay.”
I shake my head, my jaw setting hard. “No.”
A paramedic kneels beside her door. “We need to examine you, ma’am.”
Olivia nods.
“She’s pregnant,” I tell the paramedic.
My stomach twists into a hard, painful knot as they begin checking her over. Every single second feels like an hour. After fitting a collar around her neck to protect her spine, they carefully transfer her out of the ruined vehicle and straight onto a gurney.
The moment they start wheeling her toward the back of the ambulance, I scramble out of my side. Pain shoots like a knife through my shoulder, but I barely notice it. All I care about is reaching her.
I rush to her side and grab her hand, locking my fingers with hers. I walk right alongside the gurney, keeping her close, keeping her safe. Another paramedic tries to intercept me, guiding a second stretcher toward my side.
“Sir, you need to lie down and let us examine you,” he says, reaching for my uninjured arm.
“I’m fine,” I snap, brushing him off without breaking my stride. “I’m staying with her.”
The ambulance doors stand open nearby, the flashing lights painting the wreckage in rhythmic strokes of red and blue. Olivia looks up at me from the gurney, her hand still resting protectively over her stomach. The sight tears at my chest.
Marcus approaches us, a bloody cut splitting his eyebrow and his suit jacket torn on the side.
“Sir.”
I look at him. “Did they get him?”
His expression hardens into stone. “The SUV fled after the crash.”
A curse tears straight from my throat. Fuck. Of course it did. The coward. Marcus glances toward Olivia, then brings his eyes back to me.
“We recovered part of the license plate.”
I stop feeling the panic and just feel the rage.
Good. Because I’m done reacting. Done waiting. Done hoping the police find him first. Kieran crossed a line today. He came after Olivia. He came after our child.
The paramedic touches my shoulder. “Sir, we need to take both of you to the hospital.”
I nod once. Olivia looks up at me, the lingering fear evident in her eyes. I press a kiss against her forehead. Long. Careful. Protective.
“Nothing is happening to you,” I murmur, my hand sliding down to cover hers over her stomach. “Or our baby.”
I mean every single word. And for the first time since that dark blue SUV appeared behind us, the fear vanishes. All that’s left inside me is pure fury.
Because somewhere out there, Kieran thinks he won. He thinks he can keep hurting us. He thinks he can take my family. And for what? He has this sick obsession with me, convincing himself that he cares for me even while trying to destroy everything I love.
He’s wrong. And when I find him, he’s going to learn exactly how wrong he is.
The paramedics guide Olivia into the back of the ambulance.
I climb in right after her, and the doors slam shut before the ambulance pulls away.
The medics cleaned up Marcus’s cut since it wasn’t that deep, and he refused to go to the hospital.
He and John are staying behind to deal with the absolute mess we’re leaving on the FDR.