Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
The limo hurtled through the twisting mountain road, its heavy frame groaning as it swerved tight corners in the Rockies.
The windows rattled with the force of the gunfire, glass trembling as one mobster leaned out, firing round after round at the yellow cab barreling behind them.
Muzzle flashes lit the night like firecrackers, illuminating the jagged cliffs on one side and the abyss on the other.
Snow whipped past the windshield, carried in gusts of icy wind that howled against the metal.
Jayda’s pulse pounded like a war drum in her ears. She was pressed against the leather seat, her hands clenched into fists as though they alone might keep her alive. Her voice cracked as she screamed, “You promised to let him go!”
The man beside her didn’t even glance at her, too focused on reloading, too smug in the way he tugged back the slide. His partner cackled as he leaned out of the opposite window, bullets spitting fire into the dark. The only good thing was Ginny and Ed had Michael.
Jayda swallowed hard, forcing the rising sob back down. Michael was alive. They had him.
It was the least she could give them, wasn’t it?
After everything. After years of being taken into their home, only to retreat again and again.
She told herself she didn’t belong, told herself it was safer to stay away.
That Blair house was theirs, never hers.
But Ginny never stopped calling. Every Christmas, every summer, Jayda’s phone lit up with the same hopeful voice, offering her a place at their table. Offering her family.
And every time, Jayda told them no. She built walls high and thick, pretending she was protecting herself from the moment they discovered she wasn’t worth their kindness.
But tonight—tonight, on a mountain road lighted with muzzle flashes, she finally saw it clearly.
They’d known who she was all along. They knew the runaway, the foster kid who kept one foot out the door, the girl who’d slept on cold concrete floors with gangs who treated her like currency.
They knew the worst of her. And they still came for her.
Even now, even when bullets ripped through the night, Ginny and Ed and Michael refused to stop chasing her down.
Jayda’s throat tightened. They loved her. No matter how far she ran, no matter how cruelly she’d rejected them, they never stopped waiting. Never stopped fighting.
They were her family.
And suddenly—savagely—Jayda wanted to tell them. To scream it through the snow and the bullets and the roar of the engine: I love you too. I’ve been blind. I’ve been ungrateful. You were right, Michael. You were always right.
The words stayed trapped inside her chest, burning her from the inside.
The mobster beside her swung his gun around, leveling it at her head. His lips twisted into a sneer. “Don’t even think about playing the hero, sweetheart.”
Something inside Jayda snapped. Her body remembered what her mind tried to forget—the lessons of survival carved into her bones from years on the street.
She moved before fear could lock her down.
Her heel shot out in a vicious arc, catching his wrist. The gun went wide as his body jerked to the right, his shout tearing through the air.
Jayda grabbed for the opposite door where the other man was still leaning halfway out, firing into the storm.
She shoved it hard, the door swinging open.
Snow and wind tore into the cabin, and with a grunt she kicked out, her boot slamming into his back.
He toppled, his gun flying into the air as his body tumbled out into the night, disappearing beneath the churn of headlights and ice.
Jayda turned—and froze.
Veronica’s brother’s mouth curled into a cruel smile as he lunged, rage in every taut line of his face.
“It’s just you and me now,” he said in a lethal voice, the words like poison.
The driver’s silhouette shifted behind the partition, the car jerking as the limo swerved dangerously close to the cliff’s edge and back on the road.
The quick momentum caused the man to drop the gun, which clattered to the floor.
Both of them dove for it at the same time.
Jayda’s hand closed over his wrist, his fingers clawing for a grip.
She sank her teeth into his knuckles, biting down until the taste of iron filled her mouth.
He roared, trying to shake her off, but she held on, fighting with the desperation of a woman who knew there was no second chance.
If he killed her, Veronica was next. He would never stop.
Throughout her whole life, Jayda thought justice lived in courtrooms, in clean suits and closing arguments.
She wanted to be that lawyer—the one who fought for women like Veronica, women like her mother.
But here, in this moment, she understood: sometimes justice wasn’t words.
Sometimes it was survival. Sometimes it was a fight to the death in the back of a limo speeding toward a cliff.
The car jolted again. But this time, metal screamed as another vehicle slammed into their bumper. The impact hurled Jayda forward, slamming her shoulder into the partition. The mobster’s fist cracked against her jaw as they both reached again for the gun.
The weapon went off with a thunderous bang. The bullet punched through the glass divider, shattering it into a spiderweb of shards. The driver screamed.
Through the fractured glass, Jayda saw his door burst open. He hurled himself into the snow, rolling out of sight.
The wheel jerked. The limo careened wildly, the headlights casting dizzy arcs across the cliffside.
The mobster’s eyes glowed with manic triumph as his hand finally closed around the grip of the gun. He twisted it up, pressing the barrel to her chest.
Jayda didn’t think—she reached for the door handle, shoving the door open against the force of the wind.
The car tilted, nose sliding toward the abyss.
The man laughed, the sound raw and jagged. “End of the road.”
The gunshot cracked like lightning as the limo pitched forward.
Jayda hurled herself out, the icy wind ripping the breath from her lungs as the bullet ripped through her side. Snow exploded around her as she hit the ground, tumbling to the edge of the cliff. Her body screamed in pain, her vision tunneled to black at the edges.
Far behind, the limo’s frame shrieked as it tore through the guardrail, the last crash echoing as it plunged into the darkness below.
Jayda lay in the snow, her body convulsing. Warmth spread across her side where the bullet had grazed her, the blood seeping hot against the icy powder. Her limbs felt too heavy to move, her breath hitching in shallow gasps.
Voices shouted in the distance. Tires skidded.
And then—Michael. His voice. Desperate, breaking, calling her name.
Jayda wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell him he’d been right, that she loved him, that she was done running. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
Strong arms scooped her from the snow, pulling her against a chest she knew as well as her own heartbeat. Michael. She pressed her face into him, the scent of snow and blood and his cologne mingling in her fading awareness.
Safe. She was safe.
She welcomed the darkness as it surged up and swallowed her whole.
Michael cradled Jayda against his chest, the frigid mountain air burning in his lungs with every shaky breath.
Her body felt too limp, too light, as though she’d poured out everything she had left in that desperate escape from the limo.
Her blood stained the snow beneath them, but her chest rose, shallow and uneven, proof of life.
“Hold on, Jayda,” he whispered fiercely, his lips pressed against her hair. He hadn’t even realized the tears slipping hot down his face until they froze on his cheeks. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
Sirens wailed faintly in the distance, growing louder.
A paramedic team skidded to a stop near the cliff’s edge.
Snow churned under boots as the medics rushed toward them, shouting for space.
Michael didn’t want to let her go, not even when the paramedics pried her gently from his arms to check vitals, sliding oxygen beneath her nose.
Ginny gently pulled him away, fussing over him in nervousness. But she froze when Jayda’s eyelashes fluttered open.
Jayda’s groggy voice cracked through the night. “M-Michael?”
Michael almost collapsed right there. Relief ripped through him so hard he swayed, pressing a fist to his mouth to hold back the sob threatening to spill. He hadn’t realized how tightly fear had coiled inside him until he heard her voice call to him.
“She’s okay,” he whispered, to no one, to everyone. “She’s okay. I’m here, Jayda. Let the paramedics help you.”
Ed’s voice cut through the air, low and steady, carrying that courtroom authority that could silence a storm.
Michael looked up to see his father half-dragging, half-shoving a bloodied man toward the waiting deputies.
The shooter Jayda had kicked from the car.
His face was mangled, his limp was heavy, his eyes wild with pain and rage.
Ed’s grip didn’t waver. He thrust the man forward. “This one messed with the wrong family.” His jaw was hard as steel, his gaze unflinching. “With a lawyer and a judge in this family, he won’t see daylight again.”
Michael’s chest swelled. The words didn’t feel like lines from a closing argument. They felt like a vow.
Jayda’s lips trembled as fresh tears cut through the dirt on her cheeks. “I—I didn’t take my final,” she rasped, as though this was the crime that mattered most. “I’ll fail the class. Yale won’t give me another shot.”
Michael shook his head, half laughing at the absurdity of her worrying about exams when she’d just survived a mob war on a cliffside. But before he could answer, Ed crouched beside her, his voice steady.
“Circumstances matter, Jayda,” he said, his eyes softening. “Taking down a mob boss in the Rockies may just earn you bonus points.”
Michael caught the twitch in his father’s jaw, the way his mouth stopped just shy of offering more—just shy of promising to make a call. The old accusation hovered like smoke between them, that his father had pulled strings to get Jayda into Yale.
But for the first time, Michael saw the truth clearly. His father didn’t cheat for her. He just told the truth—about who she was, how hard she fought, how worthy she’d always been.
And maybe it was time someone boasted about her.
Michael’s throat burned. He met his father’s eyes. “Couldn’t you make a call?”
Ed’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re sure about that?”
Michael nodded, his voice firm. “It’s what you do for family. You show up. You lift them up when they can’t do it themselves.”
For a moment, silence hung heavy and raw. Then Ed’s mouth curved—not into his polished courtroom smile but into something rarer. Pride. Pure and unguarded.
Michael felt it like sunlight through his veins.
Jayda’s lips parted, her voice hoarse. “I can’t accept—”
“No.” Three voices cut her off at once—Michael’s, Ginny’s, Ed’s. The force of it made her blink, startled.
Ginny’s eyes shone with tears. Ed’s hand rested on her shoulder. Michael leaned down until their foreheads nearly touched.
“You don’t get to push your family away anymore,” he said firmly.
Jayda stared at them, wide-eyed. Then, unexpectedly, she laughed. The sound was broken, jagged, and it split her lip wider, blood spotting her teeth. She winced, hissing through clenched teeth.
Michael was already there, brushing his thumb tenderly across her mouth, pressing a feather-light kiss to the hurt. “Easy,” he whispered.
Her smirk curved carefully. “Care to make that…legal?”
Michael barked a laugh, the sound tumbling out raw with disbelief and joy. “Why am I not surprised Jayda Simone would be the one to propose? You always had to be first at everything.”
Ginny gasped, her hands flying to her mouth before clapping together like a child’s. “Hurry and say yes, Michael!”
Michael grinned down at Jayda, his heart so full it hurt. “Yes,” he said, voice steady, strong. “But don’t make me wait too long.”
Ed cleared his throat, his arm sliding around Ginny’s waist. “I do happen to be a judge,” he said, dry and deliberate. “In case you forgot.”
Michael’s eyes widened, flicking to Jayda’s. “How about Christmas Eve?” he asked, his voice suddenly thick and nervous. “At home.”
Jayda’s eyes filled with tears, spilling freely. She nodded, whispering, “Home is the perfect place.”
Michael sealed their pledge with a kiss, blood and salt and snow between them, but none of it mattered. In just a few days, they would be husband and wife, and Jayda would finally be a Blair.