Chapter 140
Chapter 140:
The maternal instinct driving her had stopped feeling like an emotion. It was a physical force now — a burning pressure behind her sternum that made every breath feel too small.
She reached down and unclipped her seatbelt.
“What are you doing?” Ashely’s eyes cut to her, sharp with alarm.
“Get me close,” Cailin said. Her hand found the door handle. “If we hit traffic, I run p>
𝘈𝗱𝘥𝗂c𝗍iv𝖾 𝗻𝘰𝘷𝖾l𝘀 𝘰ո ѕ.𝗰о𝗺
The gray van smashed through the wooden security arm of the marina gate, sending splinters spinning into the air.
Hilliard was right behind it.
He watched the back doors of the van, the dented bumper, the distance closing between them. He could ram them. He could end this right now.
But Elia was inside.
He hesitated — just a fraction of a second.
It was enough. The van drifted hard around a corner, tires screaming, and tore straight toward the piers.
Something sharp and foreign twisted in Hilliard’s chest. Not a physical injury. Panic. Pure, unfiltered terror unlike anything he had ever felt — not when his stock crashed, not when his parents threatened to strip him of everything, not even the night Cailin walked out. This was different. This was primal.
“Hold on, kid,” he said through clenched teeth.
The van skidded to a stop at the far end of the pier.
Gretchen jumped out and hauled Elia from the back doors. Elia came out fighting — a whirlwind of kicking legs and snapping teeth.
“Let me go p>
Gretchen slapped her. The crack carried cleanly over the water.
“Shut up p>
Hilliard saw it through his windshield.
The world narrowed to a single point. He saw red.
He swung the Aston Martin sideways in a controlled drift, blocking the only exit from the pier. Gretchen spun around. She understood immediately that she was trapped.
She raised the gun and aimed it directly at Hilliard’s windshield.
Hilliard didn’t duck. He didn’t swerve.
He accelerated.
Bang.
The ballistic windshield erupted into a spiderweb of opaque white cracks from the point of impact, the pane holding together but turning the view ahead into something like trying to see through a frozen waterfall.
He kept coming. He was a tank.
Gretchen broke. The car wasn’t stopping. She grabbed Elia by the hair and dragged her backward to the very edge of the dock, the black water churning below them.
“Back off or she goes in!” Gretchen screamed.
Hilliard hit the brakes.
The car skidded and smoked to a stop ten feet away. He kicked the door open and stepped out. Shards of tempered glass from the shattered side window cascaded from his suit like scattered diamonds. Blood traced a thin line down his face.
He raised both hands, open and empty.
“Let her go,” he said. His voice was calm — terrifyingly, impossibly calm. “Take the car. Take my wallet. Every card in it. Take all of it p>
“I want your life!” Gretchen laughed — a high, brittle sound. Her eyes were blown wide, swimming with adrenaline and fear.