Ryan

I was going out of my damn mind. Sofia had run into my arms and just as quickly run away again, telling me it had been a mistake.

I stood outside and watched her drive off, noticing as Derek’s truck followed soon after. She’d said she shouldn’t have come here, but the gnawing feeling in my gut told me otherwise. Here was exactly where she was supposed to be.

I couldn’t shake the bad feeling. She’d been gone for less than five minutes, and I still didn’t know what the hell to do. My phone was firmly gripped in my hand, my finger poised to open the app I could use to track her phone.

“I gotta go after her,” I said to Frank, who nonchalantly waved a hand toward the door.

“Then go.”

“I mean it,” I said, hoping he’d tell me I was overreacting. But then again, Frank hadn’t seen Sofia when she came running in here, tears streaming down her face. He’d been in the office with the door closed, and only came out once he heard me shouting and running after her.

“So do I,” he said.

Torn, I started pacing, practically wearing a hole in the floor with my indecision. If I chased her and I was wrong, she could lose Matson, or at least have to gear up for one hell of a custody battle. She’d never forgive me if I was the one who made that happen and it didn’t go her way.

Sofia hadn’t exaggerated about the Huntington family’s power and reach. I’d learned as much during my research I started on them after the night she broke up with me. She was right to be worried. It was part of the reason why I’d stayed away instead of showing up at her house every night like I wanted to.

Aside from the email I’d sent this morning, I hadn’t contacted her at all these past weeks. It killed me that she didn’t write back. I hadn’t expected her to, but I still thought she might. Or maybe I just hoped that she would? Wondering if she missed me the way I missed her was absolute torture.

Not having answers to the questions that plagued my mind was maddening. And disappearing from her life and Matson’s these past three weeks with no communication at all was tearing me apart.

I missed them, both of them, and drove myself crazy wondering what she’d told Matson in my absence. Had he asked about me? Did he think I abandoned him? Questions like those kept me up at night, tossing and turning in my bed.

My cell phone vibrated, and Sofia’s contact info flashed on my screen.

“Sofia? Are you okay?”

“He won’t stop chasing me, Ryan. I’m driving so fast, but I can’t lose him. I’m scared.”

She sounded terrified, and I hated myself for letting her get in the car and drive away tonight instead of stopping her. I should have confronted Derek and made him end this charade once and for all.

“I’ll be right there, Sofia. Sofia?” I yelled, but the call had already ended. “Sofia!” I shouted into the void.

Pressing Start on the tracking app, I watched as the red dot that represented her car appeared. I held my breath, waiting to see if it would move or not. When it did, I glanced at Frank, who looked more worried than I’d ever seen before.

“What is it?”

“He’s chasing her. I have to go.” I held up my phone.

His eyes widened when he recognized the app. “Go! Be careful, and call me as soon as you’re safe.”

I ran from the bar, my eyes locked on my phone’s screen. I jumped in my car and started it quickly, cursing at the navigation system to hurry up and sync with my phone. Finally, the red dot that represented Sofia’s location appeared on my much larger dashboard screen.

Seeing it move as I tore out of the parking lot stressed me out. How the hell was I going to reach her before Derek did? What if he hurt her? I raced in their direction, my stomach knotted with fear, my mind racing with more what ifs than I could process. I refused to think the worst. I couldn’t.

But when her dot stopped moving, a whole new level of stress filled me.

Why had it stopped? Was she at a stop sign? Did she throw her phone out the window? Was she at a red light?

I pressed on the gas, my instincts screaming at me that something was terribly wrong. I sensed it, knew it. I felt the danger radiating through me, tearing me up inside.

As I sped toward her location, her dot remained stationary. I pressed another button to overlay a satellite map, which revealed she wasn’t near any structures—no houses, no schools, no businesses. Sofia was on a two-lane road near the coast, her dot still motionless.

Panic unlike anything I’d ever known before crashed over me from head to toe. I closed in on her location, agonizing over what would be waiting for me. What would I see when I reached her?

One last curve and the glow of taillights caught my eye. Speeding closer, I saw smoke pouring from an engine, the front of a car crushed against the base of a massive oak tree.

Sofia’s car!

When I made out her silhouette slouched over the steering wheel, I couldn’t get to her fast enough. I slammed on my brakes and my car skidded to a stop right behind hers, the tires kicking up gravel from the road’s shoulder. Frantic, I unbuckled my seatbelt and jumped out, my feet almost slipping in the gravel the same way my tires had. Pounding on her driver’s side window, I screamed her name, begging her to come to, but she didn’t move.

Adrenaline flooded through me as I yanked on her door handle, trying to pull it open, but it wouldn’t budge. Locked. I pulled and pulled, as if I could somehow will it to unlock and let me in.

I shouted her name again and again, my throat already raw, but she remained still, slumped over the steering wheel. This can’t be happening repeated in my head as shock turned me ice-cold.

I pounded on the window again, praying it would break.

It didn’t.

And she still hadn’t moved.

Tears slid down my face, and at first, I had no idea where the moisture was coming from. It blurred my vision, and I desperately needed to see. I couldn’t help her if I couldn’t see her.

“Sofia,” I yelled again, but it was no use.

Desperate, I ran back to my car and called 911 from the console, and gave the dispatcher my location, ignoring her as she begged me to stay on the line until help arrived. I didn’t have time to waste staying on the phone with strangers when the girl I was falling in love with was hurt, unconscious, and I couldn’t fucking get to her. So I left the line open and ran back to Sofia’s car.

“Sofia, please.” My voice strangled out a hoarse cry as sirens blared in the distance. I couldn’t tell how close or far they were, but that seemed quick—too quick, I’d only called them seconds ago—and nothing made sense.

“Turn around, Ryan.”

Derek’s voice yanked my attention away from my angel. In all the chaos, I’d completely forgotten about him.

How could I have forgotten that he was the reason we were in this mess in the first place?

“I said turn around.”

His voice was low but deadly, angrier than I’d heard before. Wary, I slowly turned to face him, wondering what the hell he wanted now. Hadn’t he done enough?

My gaze instantly homed in on his hand and the gun he had pointed straight at me.

Had he planned on shooting Sofia? I looked back at her, and for the first time felt thankful that she still hadn’t woken up. I didn’t want her to see any of this.

“You were going to shoot her?” I asked, completely shocked. This guy was seriously fucking deranged.

He laughed, taking a menacing step toward me like I’d done to him all those times before. “Her? No, Ryan. I was never going to shoot Sofia.”

My head swam. Nothing made sense. Nothing added up. “Then why do you have a gun?”

He sneered at me. “You just can’t stay away, can you? I warned her. Told her if she destroyed my future, I’d destroy hers.”

“I know. She told me you want custody,” I said, focusing on his finger hovering over the trigger.

“Custody?” He let out a sick laugh. “That’s what she told you? Genius.”

“She said you were going to take Matson from her.” I shook my head, more confused than ever.

It was funny how you reacted when something unimaginable happened to you—like having a loaded gun pointed in your direction. My ears picked up every sound—the sirens getting closer by the second, an owl hooting nearby. My eyes noticed every detail—the way the wind blew Derek’s hair into his eyes but he refused to brush it out of the way, how his beard looked rough and unkempt, and the way his roughly loosened tie hung crooked. But my brain—my brain couldn’t process the words he said and make them make sense. My senses were heightened, but my mind seemed dulled.

Derek scoffed at me. “I would never take Matson from her. What would I do with a kid?”

My brain raced, spinning in circles but still unable to figure shit out. If he hadn’t threatened to take Matson from her, then what exactly had he threatened her with?

“Still confused, huh? All looks and no brains? Let me spell it out for you.” He raised the weapon higher, aiming for my head. “I told her I’d kill you. She knew I meant it after I told her what I’d done to one of our classmates back in high school.”

“Why?”

“Guess you’ll never know,” he said, smirking like this was the most enjoyable thing he’d done all day.

Sirens blared, but Derek remained unconcerned. I wondered if he even heard them or not. Maybe his brain was on point, but his senses were dulled like mine.

“The cops are getting closer.”

“You think I don’t hear them?” he shouted before lowering the gun and kicking at the dirt. He started hitting his own head with his free hand the way someone who was at their wit’s end would do. “Why did you have to be around? None of this would be happening if you had just gone away like you were supposed to!”

Although tires skidded and screeched to a stop nearby, Derek continued ranting, blaming me for all his problems and saying everything was all my fault.

I held up my hands. “If you shoot me, you’ll go to jail. You can’t get whatever it is you want from behind bars.” It was a reach, but I had to try something. Otherwise, this guy was going to kill me, and I really didn’t want to die.

He laughed again, the sick smirk back on his face. “You think I’d go to jail? You really don’t know anything, do you, Ryan? My father would never allow that to happen. Huntingtons don’t go to jail.”

“Put down the gun,” a voice boomed over a megaphone, but Derek’s wild eyes stayed fixed on mine.

He was going to shoot me. I was going to die. They say your life flashes before your eyes just before you die, and they were right. In that moment, it happened for me.

It was more like a movie montage, scenes of my childhood with Frank and my parents mixing with my present day. I saw both my brothers, their girlfriends, my mom and dad, Grant—and, of course, Sofia and Matson. They whipped through my mind’s eye in a flash, each image filled with smiles and happiness. I was thankful for having the chance to have experienced that, the joy and the love.

“Put it down!” the voice demanded again, and my blood ran cold.

Derek’s finger tightened on the trigger in slow motion as shots rang out. I covered my ears with my hands, the sounds so fucking loud around me as I bent over, convinced I could duck and avoid any flying bullets or shrapnel. Dirt kicked up, gravel hit me in the shin, but otherwise I was unhurt.

Derek’s body recoiled three times in rapid succession before his footing gave way and he fell to the ground. Blood poured from his chest, his body unmoving, but his eyes remained open. It was the first time I’d ever seen a dead body, and I hoped it would be my last.

Blood pooled around him, thicker and darker than I’d imagined it would be. Blood doesn’t flow like Kool-Aid the way they show it on TV and in the movies. Real blood is thick and moves slowly like molasses as it leaves your body.

Police surrounded me, demanding I get on my knees with my hands behind my head.

I yelled at them to get Sofia out, desperately pointing toward her car before I followed their directions. I had no idea how much time had passed, but my girl still hadn’t moved.