Crashed (Driven, #3)(83)

“You can’t have him!” she says in an eerily calm voice, which sounds far away and has me cutting off some poor f*cker in the lane next to me.

“Who’s there, Ry? Tell me, baby, please,” I plead, fear like I’ve only ever known in my youth tasting like bile in my mouth. Fear in my every f*cking nerve. I struggle with deciding whether to hang up and call 9-1-1, but that would mean I’d have to hang up on her—not hear her, not know she’s okay.

“You f*cking bitch!” is all I hear before she cries out in pain and the phone goes dead.

“No!” I scream and smash my hand into the steering wheel. My eyes blur as I try to push the numbers on my phone, but my fingers are shaking so f*cking bad that I can’t even manage 9-1-1 until after the third try.

“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?” The disembodied voice answers.

“Please help them. They’re screaming and … they’re screaming!” I plead with her.

“Who’s screaming, sir?”

“Rylee and Zand…” I can’t f*cking think straight; ice floods my veins and my only thought is I need to get to them so I don’t even realize I’m not making any f*cking sense. “Please, someone is there and—”

“Sir, what’s your name? What’s the address?”

“Co-Colton,” I stutter out when I realize I don’t even know the f*cking address. Just the street. “Switzerland Avenue.”

Oh f*ck. Oh f*ck. Hang on, baby. Hang on. I’m coming. It’s all I repeat in my head—over and over—as my body shakes.

“What’s the address sir?”

“I don’t f*cking know!” I shout at the 9-1-1 operator. “The one with all the goddamn paparazzi out front. There’s no one else in the house but her and a little boy. Please! Quickly.”

And when I look up from ending the call, I have to slam on the brakes as I hit f*cking road construction.

“Fuck!” I yell, laying in on my horn like it’s my f*cking lifeline.

Rylee.

She’s my only thought.

Rylee.

Please God, no.





“Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman. Spiderman. Batman …” Zander repeats it over and over as he sits balled up in a corner behind me in the backyard. It’s the only thing I can hear over the buzzing in my head right now from the force of the punch. Zander’s hands are over his ears and he rocks back and forth as he chants, withdrawing into himself. Into the world he wants to exist, where there are no bad men wielding guns or fathers holding knives cutting their wives apart.


The problem is that in Zander’s world, they are one in the same.

I notice all of this in the split second after I’m punched in the face, my body flinging and twisting from the impact to see my sweet boy shrinking into himself. Time stands still then begins to move in slow motion. The pain in my cheek and eye does nothing to abate the fear in my heart as I look up to meet the eyes of the man that’s been a constant presence in my life over the past few weeks. His hat and dark glasses have been knocked off and it hits me.

I know this man.

I’ve seen him before.

He’s the man who gave me the creeps in the Target parking lot. He’s the man from the dark blue sedan parked outside of The House and my house, following me. Without his hat and sunglasses I can see Zander in him. I know why he seemed so familiar in the parking lot that day. He has the same color eyes, the same features; his hair is longer and a bit darker, but the resemblance is unmistakable.

My eyes skim over the matte black metal of the pistol he has pointed at me and then to his eyes—dark pools of unemotional blackness—that are flickering back and forth from me to Zander and his incessant chanting of superheroes in the background.

“What did you do to him?” he shouts at me angling the gun over to Zander and then back to me. “Why’s he doing that? Answer me!”

Stay calm, Rylee. Stay calm, Rylee.

“He—he’s scared.” You did this to him, I want to scream at him. You did this, you useless piece of murdering sack of shit, but all I do is repeat myself, trying to hide my fear and keep myself from stuttering. I try to focus on the pounding of my heart, counting the beats thumping in my ears to keep me calm. I can feel the rivulets of sweat trickle between my shoulder blades and breasts. I can smell the fear and my stomach revolts, knowing it’s mine that I smell—mixed with his.

And I hold onto that thought.

That he’s scared too.

Think, Ry. Think. I need to keep him calm but protect Zander, and I have no clue how to do that. The unfettered fear I feel is scattering my thoughts, robbing me of coherency. Of what in the hell I should do, because I know he’s murdered before. Murdered the mother of his child, his wife no less.

What’s going to stop him from murdering me?

He has nothing to lose.

And that more than anything scares the shit out of me.

I force a swallow, my eyes flicking all over the backyard. I see his camera and fake press pass on the ground by the gate. I see my cell phone in the edge of the grass, where it scattered when he hit me, and I immediately think of Colton.

I instantly grab on to the hope that he heard me, knows we’re in trouble, will call for help—because if he didn’t, I have no chance at protecting Zander against this madman. Of protecting myself.