Chapter 78
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Harper
I wake up to bright lights, and I cough so hard I swear a lung nearly comes out. I try to move, but I'm held in place by gentle hands.
"Harper, it's me," a woman whispers.
I blink, trying to focus. Dark hair. Not much else.
"Gianna?" I croak.
"Yes. Gianna. I'm going to take you someplace safe, okay?"
My body shakes violently. I can't stop it. The cold. The shock. The smell of smoke clinging to everything.
"Ace. Where is Ace?"
She strokes her hand along my arm.
"I'm going to get him back, Harper. I'm going to make this right."
A man lifts me from the ground. I look down and find a dead body beside me, bleeding out on the road.
For a second, my blood drains. But then I realize it isn't Ace.
But Ace isn't here. That's the thing that won't compute. He came for me. He held me on a kitchen floor and kissed my stomach and promised forever, and now there's a body on the road and a burning car and the space where he should be.
The man lays me in the back of the car. Everything spins as Gianna gets in the driver's seat. No driver tonight. No entourage. Just her.
"I don't feel well," I whisper.
"You're going to be fine, Harper. We're taking you to my doctor."
I let out a sob, staring at the ceiling of the car.
"My baby. Just make sure my baby is okay."
I hear her suck in a breath. I fight through the agony to put my hands on my stomach.
"D-Did you do this?" I ask.
She doesn't answer. Her eyes stay on the road. Her knuckles white on the wheel.
"Did you do this, Gianna!" I scream, using all the energy I have left.
"I didn't know! I don't know what the fuck has happened. I gave a no-kill order on Ace, and someone went against me, Harper."
And there it is. Something I've never heard in Gianna Milano's voice before.
Fear.
Not of me. Of what this means. Because in her world, an order ignored isn't disobedience. It's a declaration. Someone in her own family just told her exactly what they think of her crown.
Tears roll down my cheeks.
"Your family did this," I whisper.
"Whoever did this is going to regret it, Harper." Her voice drops into something cold. Flat. The voice of a woman mentally writing names on a list. "I will pull my family apart piece by piece if I have to."
My eyes are heavy. They close on their own.
"I thought you were my friend," I say as I drift off.
I can hear her shouting at me to stay awake. Her hand reaching back, gripping mine, squeezing hard. It’d almost think she actually cares about me.
And all I can see is Ace.
The smile he had on his face while talking about baby names.
And I hope, wherever I wake up next, I'm with them. My baby and my man.