Page 52 of Noel Secrets

Far behind, the limo’s frame shrieked as it tore through the guardrail, the last crash echoing as it plunged into the darkness below.

Jayda lay in the snow, her body convulsing. Warmth spread across her side where the bullet had grazed her, the blood seeping hot against the icy powder. Her limbs felt too heavy to move, her breath hitching in shallow gasps.

Voices shouted in the distance. Tires skidded.

And then—Michael. His voice. Desperate, breaking, calling her name.

Jayda wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell him he’d been right, that she loved him, that she was done running. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

Strong arms scooped her from the snow, pulling her against a chest she knew as well as her own heartbeat. Michael. She pressed her face into him, the scent of snow and blood and his cologne mingling in her fading awareness.

Safe. She was safe.

She welcomed the darkness as it surged up and swallowed her whole.

Michael cradled Jayda against his chest, the frigid mountain air burning in his lungs with every shaky breath. Her body felt too limp, too light, as though she’d poured out everything she had left in that desperate escape from the limo. Her blood stained the snow beneath them, but her chest rose, shallow and uneven, proof of life.

“Hold on, Jayda,” he whispered fiercely, his lips pressed against her hair. He hadn’t even realized the tears slipping hot down his face until they froze on his cheeks. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

Sirens wailed faintly in the distance, growing louder. A paramedic team skidded to a stop near the cliff’s edge. Snowchurned under boots as the medics rushed toward them, shouting for space. Michael didn’t want to let her go, not even when the paramedics pried her gently from his arms to check vitals, sliding oxygen beneath her nose.

Ginny gently pulled him away, fussing over him in nervousness. But she froze when Jayda’s eyelashes fluttered open.

Jayda’s groggy voice cracked through the night. “M-Michael?”

Michael almost collapsed right there. Relief ripped through him so hard he swayed, pressing a fist to his mouth to hold back the sob threatening to spill. He hadn’t realized how tightly fear had coiled inside him until he heard her voice call to him.

“She’s okay,” he whispered, to no one, to everyone. “She’s okay. I’m here, Jayda. Let the paramedics help you.”

Ed’s voice cut through the air, low and steady, carrying that courtroom authority that could silence a storm. Michael looked up to see his father half-dragging, half-shoving a bloodied man toward the waiting deputies. The shooter Jayda had kicked from the car. His face was mangled, his limp was heavy, his eyes wild with pain and rage.

Ed’s grip didn’t waver. He thrust the man forward. “This one messed with the wrong family.” His jaw was hard as steel, his gaze unflinching. “With a lawyer and a judge in this family, he won’t see daylight again.”

Michael’s chest swelled. The words didn’t feel like lines from a closing argument. They felt like a vow.

Jayda’s lips trembled as fresh tears cut through the dirt on her cheeks. “I—I didn’t take my final,” she rasped, as though this was the crime that mattered most. “I’ll fail the class. Yale won’t give me another shot.”

Michael shook his head, half laughing at the absurdity of her worrying about exams when she’d just survived a mob war ona cliffside. But before he could answer, Ed crouched beside her, his voice steady.

“Circumstances matter, Jayda,” he said, his eyes softening. “Taking down a mob boss in the Rockies may just earn you bonus points.”

Michael caught the twitch in his father’s jaw, the way his mouth stopped just shy of offering more—just shy of promising to make a call. The old accusation hovered like smoke between them, that his father had pulled strings to get Jayda into Yale.

But for the first time, Michael saw the truth clearly. His father didn’t cheat for her. He just told the truth—about who she was, how hard she fought, how worthy she’d always been.

And maybe it was time someone boasted about her.

Michael’s throat burned. He met his father’s eyes. “Couldn’t you make a call?”

Ed’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re sure about that?”

Michael nodded, his voice firm. “It’s what you do for family. You show up. You lift them up when they can’t do it themselves.”

For a moment, silence hung heavy and raw. Then Ed’s mouth curved—not into his polished courtroom smile but into something rarer. Pride. Pure and unguarded.

Michael felt it like sunlight through his veins.

Jayda’s lips parted, her voice hoarse. “I can’t accept?—”