Chapter 150
Diana's POV
The black SUV appeared in my rearview mirror three blocks from the office.
At first, I assumed it was David's security team—Rowen had said they'd maintain distance. But as I took the turn onto Fifth Street, the SUV followed. Closer than a protection detail should be.
Too close.
My hands tightened on the wheel.
"Everything okay?" Lena's voice pulled me back.
"Yeah. Just—" I checked the mirror again. The SUV had dropped back slightly, but it was still there. "Probably nothing."
But my instincts, honed by years of litigation and late-night document reviews in empty parking garages, were screaming otherwise.
The light ahead turned yellow.
I should have run it. Should have punched the gas and blown through before it went red.
Instead, I did what law-abiding citizens do—I stopped.
The SUV behind us didn't slow down.
In the rearview mirror, I saw it accelerate.
Time fractured into strange, crystalline clarity.
The SUV's reinforced grille, growing larger.
Lena beside me, still looking out her window, unaware.
My body moving before conscious thought—seat belt release, my right arm shooting across Lena's chest, shoving her down and away from the impact point.
"Diana, what—"
The world exploded.
Impact
Metal screaming. Glass shattering. The physics of momentum and mass converting to pure violence.
My door caved inward, crushing my left side. Pain—immediate, blinding, absolute—as ribs snapped like kindling. The steering wheel caught my chest. My head whipped sideways into something hard.
But Lena—
Through the chaos of spinning metal and erupting airbags, I felt her beneath my arm, my body a barrier between her and the collapsing driver's side.
The car flipped.
Once. Twice.
Each rotation brought new impacts—roof, window, roof again. My shoulder dislocated with a wet pop I felt more than heard. Something warm ran down my face.
Then stillness.
The car rested on its side, my door against asphalt.
I tried to breathe. Couldn't. Something inside me was very, very wrong.
"Lena?" My voice came out as a wheeze.
From somewhere above me—no, beside me, the car was sideways—I heard movement. A gasp.
"Diana. Oh god, Diana, don't move—"
Her face appeared in my limited field of vision, pale, blood on her forehead from a cut above her eye, but alive. Conscious. Moving.
Safe. I kept her safe.
"M'okay," I managed. Lie. Obvious lie.
"You're not. Jesus, there's so much—" Her hands were on me, pressing somewhere. "I'm calling 911. Stay with me, Diana. Stay—"
The world grayed at the edges.
I heard sirens. Distant. Getting closer.
Lena's voice, tight with panic: "The ambulance is coming. You're going to be fine. You have to be fine. Diana, please—"
I wanted to tell her it wasn't her fault. That I'd make the same choice again. That she was worth saving.
But darkness pulled me under before I could form the words.
Lena's POV
My hands were covered in her blood.
I knelt in shattered glass on the tilted car floor—no, the side of the car, everything was wrong—pressing my jacket against the worst of the bleeding from Diana's side. Her face was chalk-white, her breathing shallow and wet-sounding.
"Stay with me," I heard myself say. "The ambulance is almost here. You're going to be okay. You'll be fine."
She wasn't fine. The amount of blood, the angle her left arm hung, the way her breathing rattled—
This was my fault.
No. Not fault. That was the wrong word.
This was because of me.
Diana had thrown herself between me and the impact. Had used her body as a shield.
I didn't understand.
People didn't do that. People didn't—
The shriek of sirens filled my ears. Shouts. Hands pulling me back.
"Miss, we need to get to her. Are you injured?"
Was I? I looked down. Blood on my hands, my clothes. A sharp pain in my shoulder. The cut on my forehead. But none of it felt real.
"I'm fine. Help her. Please, help her."
Paramedics swarmed the wreckage, speaking in rapid-fire medical terminology I couldn't process. They were cutting Diana free, stabilizing her neck, calling out blood pressure numbers that meant nothing to me.
A hand on my shoulder made me flinch.
Rowan.
He was saying something, his face a mask of fury and fear, but I couldn't hear him over the sound of my own heartbeat.
"She pushed me out of the way," I said. The words felt disconnected from my voice. "She saw it coming and she—why would she do that?"
Rowan's hands framed my face, forcing me to focus. "Are you hurt?"
"Why would she—" I couldn't finish. Couldn't make sense of it.
The paramedics were loading Diana onto a stretcher, moving with controlled urgency. One of them was squeezing a bag attached to a tube in her arm. Another was holding pressure on her side.
"Lena." Rowan's voice, sharp. "Are you injured?"
"I don't—" I touched my forehead, fingers coming away red. "I don't know. It doesn't matter. She's—"
They were lifting the stretcher into the ambulance.
I tried to follow, but a paramedic blocked me. "Family only in the ambulance, ma'am."
"I'm—" What was I? Her friend. The reason she was bleeding out. "Please."
"We'll meet them at the hospital," Rowan said, his arm around me, steering me toward his car.
I looked back at the wreckage. The black SUV was gone—fled the scene. The side of Diana's car was completely caved in where it had struck her door.
If she hadn't pushed me. If she hadn't—
I would be the one in that ambulance.
Or I'd be dead.
The thought settled over me like ice water.
This was meant for me. The SUV, the calculated timing, the precision of the strike.
Marcus.
Even from Geneva, even with arrest imminent, he'd reached across an ocean to destroy me.
And Diana had paid the price.