Chapter 197

Chapter 197
LEVI

I hit the speaker with the heel of my hand. “Father—someone’s shooting at us! Fuck…” The words tore out of me, fast and ragged. For a second, a darker thought flashed through my head—to confront him, to ask about Isabella’s accusation. Had he done this? I hated myself for even thinking it. I swallowed the suspicion down like bile.
“My God, Levi!” His voice shattered through the phone speaker, raw and frantic, every syllable trembling with fear. “Son—that’s why I called! I just got a message from an anonymous number saying they’re going to kill you. They know you’re eloping with Isabella—they said they’d never let it happen. Where the hell are you right now?! Are you with her? Were you going to elope?”
Isabella’s voice burst over mine, hysterical. “I know you’re doing this, sir! Please—just end this madness—”
I clamped a hand over her mouth so hard she hissed. “Shut it,” I snapped. The words felt cruel even as they left my mouth; panic had a way of making people lie and accuse and scream nonsense.
“Dad, this is not the time…”
“Levi, where are you?” my father demanded again, breathing ragged down the line.
“Rockaway Boulevard,” I said, my voice stretched tight as wire.
Silence swallowed the call for a beat. All I could hear was my own breathing, the throb of blood behind my ears, and the scream of a tire somewhere close enough to be a warning. Then my father spoke, very quietly—so quiet it felt louder than his earlier shouting.
“Son… you need to listen to me very carefully. Do not go to the airport.”
The words landed like an order. My mouth opened to argue, to insist the hangar was our only chance—but the gunfire outside made any argument hollow.
“I’ve called the police,” he said. “I’ll give them your address now.”
That should have been a relief. Instead, a slow, stupid realization hit me like a fist to the gut: we hadn’t thought to call the police. In the madness—bullets, tires, chaos—I’d convinced myself I could handle this.
“Fuck… Dad. Thanks. We didn’t even think—” I choked on the words.
“But they might be too slow,” he warned. “I called in a favor. My friend’s sending bodyguards from his company. They might reach you before the police.”
The tiny hope in that sentence felt like an anchor thrown into dark water. Isabella snatched her phone from her lap, her fingers trembling. I released my hand from around her mouth.
“What are you doing?” I snapped, the edge in my voice sharper than I intended.
“I’m calling 911,” she said, voice fragile but steady. “I can’t believe I forgot. And I doubt your father would—”
“Isabella, stop it,” I cut in. The world was tilting, my thoughts fraying at the edges. Part of me was trying to calculate—how to take off, how to protect the woman I loved—while another part, the son, was fighting to believe in my father’s innocence, to believe he wasn’t capable of this.
She started to sob then, words tumbling out in a frantic, shaky rush. “What if it was me they wanted? What if they come for my siblings—Caroline, Matt—are they at the airport? If anything happens to them, I’ll never forgive you or myself. I swear to God, I’ll make him pay, if anything—if anything—” Her voice broke, the threat collapsing into a sob.
“You sound like my enemy right now,” I said, breath coming short. My fingers tightened on the wheel until my knuckles glowed white.
“Your father is my enemy—and you’re taking his side—”
She cut herself off with a look so raw it made my mouth go dry. She thought he was the villain. For a stupid second, before logic returned, I felt the weight of that accusation like a hand pressing on my chest.
“I wouldn’t choose him over you, my love,” I muttered. “I’m not making a choice—”
We were talking in shards, throwing sentences like flares into the dark. I forced my focus back to the road, to the narrow strip of asphalt ahead, to the idea that motion meant safety. We turned the corner too hard. There was a terrible, wrenching sound—like the world being torn—and the truck in the rearview did something unpredictable.
Everything happened at once.
The windshield lit up with a bright, obscene bloom as something hit us—hard. My hands slammed the wheel instinctively; the car fishtailed. Gravel hissed under the tires. The world elongated into streaks—streetlights bleeding white across the dashboard, brake lights a smear of angry red. Isabella screamed, a sound that cut through the noise and went straight to my bones.
We clipped the curb. The car shuddered as if convulsing. The steering wheel jerked in my hands and I wrestled it, heart hammering, desperate to regain control. The back end swung out. For a half-breath, I thought we might save it. Then the right side of the vehicle struck a tree.
The impact was everything—metal screaming, glass popping like gunfire, the world folding in on itself. The steering column lurched; my chest slammed forward. The seatbelt tightened across my sternum like a vise. Airbags detonated with a white, choking cloud that filled the cabin with the acrid smell of powder and burned plastic. For a second—so small it seemed endless—the noise was a universe: alarms, glass shattering, Isabella’s wail, the radio going dead under the mechanical roar.
My head hit the wheel hard enough to spark stars across my vision. Pain flared in my side. I tasted blood, dust, and something sharp and chemical. The car was tilted now, half in the gutter, half absurdly on the road, lights from passing cars painting our wreck in flashes of red and white. Outside, someone shouted—maybe the truck driver, maybe a pedestrian—the sound distant and quick.
I forced my eyes open. Isabella was leaning against the passenger door, hair matted with blood and sweat, one hand pressed to her forehead, the other curled against the airbag as if it could anchor her. Her eyes met mine—wide, glassy, alive—and for a moment all the chaos narrowed to that single point: she was still breathing.
“Dad—” I began, voice raw. My phone was a warm, vibrating brick against my thigh.
And then—
Blackness.