Page 75 of Her Silver Fox Firefighters

“It’s okay,” I hurriedly reply. “I’ll call?—”

The second bump is even harder. Carlos curses under his breath, struggling to keep control over the car. We’re zigzagging all over the road, and I can’t reach my phone. It must’ve slipped somewhere beneath my seat.

“Olivia, hold on!” I hear Carlos shout.

By the time I raise my head, the third bump hits the hardest, causing us to veer off the road. I scream as we skid across the hard dirt, bouncing uncontrollably until we hit a tree, causing the airbags to deploy.

I hear Carlos’s pained grunt. His head is whipped back against the headrest. My airbag hits me square in the face, temporarily knocking me senseless. The horn blares, on and on, echoing in my ears and dragging me back into consciousness.

“Oh, God,” I cry out, realizing what just happened.

I look around and try to get my bearings. “Carlos,” I say, then look to my left.

He groans softly; his head lolled to the side. Blood drips from his temple, and his eyes are closed, but he’s breathing. He’s coming to. A sense of urgency comes over me as I hear rushed footsteps approaching.

I can’t see a thing in this darkness. The headlights are out, smashed into the tree.

I reach over to grab Carlos’s gun. In my mind, I need it for protection. Whatever just happened, it was meant to disable us both.

The door cracks open to my right. I scream again as Marcus swoops in and smacks me across the face.

“Shut up!” he snarls and hits me once more.

The sting travels through my jaw, the heat spreading as white stars streak across my field of vision. “Marcus, no…”

He unfastens my seatbelt—or cuts it, I’m not sure—as I see the glint of a metal blade too close to my belly.

“Don’t hurt me, I’m pregnant!” I blurt out in a desperate attempt to stop him.

Marcus stills and gives me a sour look. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Don’t do this,” I beg him.

He looks at Carlos, giving me a split second to notice the dark rings around Marcus’s eyes, his stubble, his messy hair. It’s been a while since he’s groomed himself; Marcus never left the house if his eyebrows weren’t perfect. The man I’m seeing here hardly bears a resemblance to the Marcus Bennett I knew and ran away from.

“Unless you want me to paint this car red with his blood, you’re gonna keep your mouth shut and do as I tell you,” he commands me.

“Please, Marcus, you’ve gone too far…”

He grabs me by the throat and yanks me out of the car. I sob and squirm in his hold, but to no avail. He has no mercy for me, no consideration. My only safe bet is to submit and let him take me.

So I soften and obey.

We leave Carlos behind, the horn still blaring, the dark night wrapping itself around me as if to kiss me goodbye forever.

All I can think of is that I may never see Dax, Leo, or Beck again, that my babies may never find their way into this world.

23

DAX

“Any word?” Beck asks me.

I’ve been pacing the living room of our house for the past twenty minutes, trying to reach Olivia’s and Carlos’s phones. I get no answer. They both go straight to voicemail.

“We were supposed to meet back here an hour ago,” I say, shaking my head. “This isn’t right; something’s happened.”

Luke comes downstairs from his room dressed in basketball shorts and a t-shirt, both hanging loosely over his wiry frame. His sleepy eyes scan us from head to toe as he asks, “What’s going on?”