Chapter 383
Eliza held him as the world exploded into chaos around her. She felt the beat of his heart against her chest — erratic, fluttering like a trapped bird.
But it was beating.
“I’ve got you,” she whispered into his ear. “I’ve got you, and I’m never letting go.”
Dallas looked up at her, his vision fading to black. He saw the green dress. The color of life.
At least, he thought as the darkness took him, the last thing I saw was her.
The pristine white of the ICU was a stark, brutal contrast to the chaos of the ballroom. One moment, Eliza was on the floor cradling Dallas’s head, the erratic flutter of his heart a frantic drum against her palm. The next, Simmons was pulling her away, his grip gentle but unyielding.
“Ma’am, you need to let the medics work,” Simmons had said, his voice a low, urgent command. He and Vance formed a human wall, shielding Dallas as the paramedics loaded him onto a stretcher. Eliza had tried to follow, to climb into the ambulance — Simmons blocked her path.
𝘓𝗮𝗍𝗲st chaрt𝘦r𝘀 оո 𝘨a𝗹ո𝗼𝘃е𝗅𝘀.c𝘰𝗺
“His last order was to keep you safe,” Simmons said, his face grim. “And that ambulance is now a target. Go home, Eliza. We’ll call you.”
He had bundled her into a separate, unmarked car, leaving her to watch the flashing red lights disappear into the night, a silent scream trapped in her throat.
Three hours later, the silence in Dr. Vance’s private clinic was absolute.
Dallas Koch’s eyes snapped open. He wasn’t in a hospital. He was in a fortress. The first thing he saw was the steady green line of the heart monitor. The second was Vance, checking his IV drip.
“Welcome back, you stubborn bastard,” Vance muttered. “You almost didn’t make it.”
But Dallas didn’t ask about his own condition. His first rasped words were a command, delivered with the chilling clarity of a man who had just returned from the brink.
“Find him. The Kensington boy.”
Now, on the massive screen mounted to the opposite wall, a live feed from Simmons’s body camera showed Hunter writhing on a garage floor. Dallas’s face was as pale as the sheets beneath him, his eyes shadowed with exhaustion — but they burned with a cold, terrifying fire. A cocktail of stimulants and cardiac drugs pumped directly into his bloodstream, a desperate chemical bridge holding his failing organs together for just a little longer.
The underground garage of the private club smelled of gasoline and old concrete. A cold, damp silence filled the space, broken only by the sound of a heavy body hitting the floor.
Hunter Kensington landed hard on the cement. His tuxedo shirt was torn, stained with grease and sweat. He scrambled backward, expensive leather shoes scraping uselessly against the grit, trying to put distance between himself and the two men in black suits who had dragged him from his car.
“Do you know who I am?” Hunter slurred, the alcohol from the wedding still thick on his tongue. “My father will—”
A polished black Oxford shoe came down on Hunter’s right hand. It didn’t stomp. It pressed. Hard.
.
.