Chapter 199
Julian： POV
I stood in the doorway, taking in the scene before me in a split second of crystalline clarity. Nancy, her surgically altered face twisted with rage, held a knife to Ethan's throat.
Blood seeped through his shirt sleeve where she'd already cut him. Elena was bound to a chair across the room, her eyes wide with terror. And Lila—my daughter—lay unconscious on a mattress in the corner.
The warehouse reeked of fear and cleaning chemicals, as if someone had tried to scrub away evidence of previous violence.
Nancy's head snapped toward me, her grip on the knife shifting as shock and fury warred across her features. In her startled movement, she shoved Ethan hard against the wall—he hit the concrete with a sickening thud and crumpled to the floor, his head lolling as consciousness flickered in and out of his eyes.
"You!" Nancy screamed, her voice cracking with hysteria as she whirled toward Elena. "This is all because of you!"
The knife in her hand caught the dying afternoon light as she abandoned Ethan and moved toward her true target—Elena, bound helplessly to that chair.
Three steps to Elena. Nancy's grip on the knife—loose but desperate. If I move too fast, she'll panic. Too slow, and she might hurt Elena just to watch me suffer.
Behind me, I heard the careful footsteps of Adrian and the other officers spreading out, taking positions. I raised one hand slightly—a signal to hold, to wait for my move.
"Why are you doing this?" I forced the question out, buying time, calculating distances and angles.
Nancy's surgically altered face twitched—small, involuntary spasms that revealed the mental fracture beneath.
"You should be asking the Victoria you drove to desperation why she wouldn't do this."
"Victoria, how did you—" I started, but she cut me off.
"Disappear? Is that what you're wondering? Or maybe you're wondering why I look like Elena now?"
Her free hand touched her face, fingers trembling.
"Do you know what it's like," she whispered, her voice cracking, "to look in the mirror every morning and see someone else's face staring back? To have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to become a ghost?"
Her laugh turned into a sob, then back into laughter—the sound of a mind completely unmoored.
"It's because I was too pathetic. Always wanting something that was never mine."
I moved toward Elena carefully, keeping my eyes on Nancy while tracking the distance to the chair.
Three steps.
Two.
I reached for the ropes binding Elena's wrists—
Nancy's face twisted with sudden rage. "No!" she screamed, lunging forward with the knife raised high, aimed directly at Elena's heart.
Time slowed to a crawl. I saw the blade descending, saw Elena's eyes widen in terror, saw the moment that would end everything.
I threw myself between them.
The knife meant for Elena's chest buried itself deep in my side instead. The steel tore through muscle and scraped against bone, sending lightning bolts of agony through my entire body.
Nancy's eyes went wide with shock, her mouth falling open as she stared at the blade protruding from my ribs. For a heartbeat, neither of us moved—her hand still gripping the handle, my body pressed against hers in this grotesque embrace.
Then something in her face shifted. The shock melted away, replaced by something wild and unhinged. She began to laugh—a high, keening sound that raised the hair on my arms.
"Perfect," she gasped between hysterical giggles. "This is perfect. If I can't have you, then no one can."
"Police! Drop the weapon!"
Shouts exploded behind me as officers charged in. Nancy's hand clenched around the knife handle on reflex—she was trying to drive it deeper when multiple sets of hands grabbed her arms.
The blade twisted sickeningly in my side as two officers hauled her backward, every movement of the steel sending fresh agony tearing through me as they slammed her down.
She struggled, still laughing, her face twisted with manic glee. "You were supposed to be mine! If I can't have you, no one will!"
I staggered, my hand instinctively pressing against the wound. Blood seeped between my fingers, warm and thick, and the world tilted dangerously.
Someone was shouting. "Get the paramedics up here now!"
The room spun. I felt myself falling, felt someone catch me—Adrian, his face white with shock as he eased me to the ground.
Elena's hands were suddenly free, the ropes cut by one of the officers. She shook off the bindings and dropped to her knees beside me, her trembling fingers replacing mine over the wound, pressing hard. Her face swam in and out of focus, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Call 911!" she screamed at the officers, her voice raw with panic. "Someone call 911!"
"Already on their way, ma'am," one of them responded, but Elena didn't seem to hear.
"Not like this," she kept repeating, a mantra against the horror. "Not like this, not again, I can't lose you again."
Each second felt like an hour. The sirens in the distance seemed impossibly far away. Elena's voice calling my name became an anchor, the only thing keeping me conscious as my vision grayed at the edges.
"How long for the ambulance?" someone shouted.
"Six minutes out!"
Six minutes. I might not have six minutes.
"Julian, stay with me," she said, her voice breaking. "Don't you dare—don't you dare leave us!"
I tried to speak, tried to tell her I was sorry, that I loved her, that I'd spend whatever time I had left making this right. But the words came out as a wet cough, and her face blurred with tears—hers or mine, I couldn't tell.
Behind her, I could see Nancy being dragged away, still laughing, still fighting. Could see the officer carefully lifting Lila from the mattress, checking her pulse before carrying her toward the door. Could see Ethan slumped against the wall where Nancy had left him, watching everything with hollow, haunted eyes.
"Julian, please," Elena whispered, and her hand found mine, slick with blood but holding on so tight.