Chapter 2 2

Isabella POV

The deafening screech of tearing metal drowned out Victoria's hysterical screams. Our three-ton armored limousine spun wildly across the asphalt as the three unmarked black SUVs hit us again in flawless, military-grade formation.

Up front, the Russo driver-a pathetic Associate who had clearly never seen a day of real combat-was hyperventilating. He dropped the radio, his hands slipping off the steering wheel as he sobbed.

We were going to die because of a coward.

Survival was the first lesson the federal penitentiary had beaten into me. You never put your life in the hands of the weak.

"You're going to get us killed!" Victoria shrieked as I unbuckled my seatbelt.

I ignored her. With a burst of kinetic energy that defied my slender frame, I vaulted over the partition separating the passenger cabin from the front. I grabbed the weeping driver by the collar of his cheap suit.

"Get out of the way. Now," I commanded, my voice a lethal, icy whip honed in the darkest corners of a prison block.

The sheer murderous intent in my eyes paralyzed him. He scrambled over the center console, cowering in the passenger seat. I slid behind the wheel, my combat boots slamming onto the pedals. The moment my hands gripped the leather, the soul of the dying vehicle shifted. It was no longer a tomb; it was my weapon.

I checked the mirrors. The SUVs were boxing us in, trying to force a complete stop. My mind raced, calculating weight, velocity, and the terrain ahead.

An uphill exit ramp approached on the right.

I floored the gas, feinting left before violently jerking the heavy steering wheel to the right and slamming the brakes. The sudden shift of three tons of armored steel caught the right-flank SUV completely off guard. Our reinforced bumper clipped their rear quarter panel. The SUV lost traction, spinning out of control before crashing through the metal guardrail and tumbling down the steep embankment.

One down.

Ahead of us, a massive logging truck labored up the highway. A brutal, suicidal plan formed in my mind. I accelerated, ignoring the agonizing grind of the limo's failing transmission. I drafted inches behind the truck's massive timber load, using it as a physical and visual shield.

The second SUV accelerated blindly to keep up.

At the absolute last second, I wrenched the steering wheel hard to the left. The limo swerved into the open lane. The pursuing SUV had no time to react. It plowed headfirst into the rear of the logging truck. The impact snapped the securing chains, and massive wooden logs rained down, instantly crushing the vehicle and completely blocking the highway for the third SUV.

I eased the battered, smoking limousine onto the desolate roadside shoulder. The engine gave one final, pathetic shudder before dying completely.

Silence descended, broken only by the hiss of the radiator.

Before I could even uncurl my fingers from the wheel, the driver's side door was yanked open from the inside. Victoria lunged at me, her face twisted in a grotesque mask of terror and humiliated rage. She couldn't handle the fact that the stepdaughter she had thrown to the wolves had just become her savior. She needed to reassert her pathetic dominance.

"You absolute psycho!" she spat, raising her hand to slap me.

I didn't even blink. My hand shot out, my fingers clamping around her wrist like a steel vise. I squeezed, feeling the delicate bones grind together.

Victoria gasped, the color draining from her face as excruciating pain replaced her fury.

I didn't look at her. I kept my eyes fixed on the rearview mirror, my voice devoid of any human warmth. "I just saved your life. Next time, I might not."

I shoved her arm back, discarding her like trash. The power dynamic shattered into a million unfixable pieces. Victoria stumbled back against the leather seats, clutching her red, bruising wrist. She looked at me not as a daughter, but as a monster she had unwittingly unleashed.

As she cowered, a sleek, silver Rolls Royce Phantom glided silently onto the shoulder, rolling past our smoking wreckage.

Through the heavily tinted rear window, I felt it. A gaze so heavy, so suffocatingly powerful, it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The glass lowered just a fraction. In the shadows of the backseat, I saw the sharp, unforgiving jawline of a man in a charcoal suit. The faint glow of a tablet illuminated his face as he handed it to the man in the front seat.

I couldn't hear his voice, but I saw his lips curve into a faint, dangerous smirk.

He was assessing me. Not as collateral damage, but as an asset. I didn't know who he was, but as the Phantom smoothly accelerated away, I knew this ambush wasn't an assassination attempt, but a violent invitation.