His Dangerous Love On Ice Chapter 227: Olive's Pov

I pressed the gas.

Accelerating through the intersection.

Too distracted to care about traffic laws or safety or anything except getting home and—

Headlights.

Bright.

Blinding.

Coming straight at me from the left.

Fast.

Too fast.

My brain registered it half a second before my body reacted…a black Range Rover running the red light, not slowing, not stopping, aimed directly at my driver's side door like a missile locked on target.

I screamed.

Yanked the wheel hard to the right without thinking, pure instinct taking over.

My foot hit the brake and the gas at the same time in pure panic, and suddenly I was moving backward, the car reversing at an angle I hadn't consciously chosen, tires screaming against asphalt.

The Range Rover missed me.

By inches.

I felt the displacement of air as it shot past where I'd been half a second earlier, close enough that I could see the tinted windows, close enough that if I'd hesitated even a fraction of a moment longer I'd be dead.

And then the sound.

Metal on metal.

Glass shattering.

The sickening crunch of impact as the Range Rover plowed into the car that had been behind me…a silver sedan, crumpled like paper where the massive SUV had hit it at full speed.

My car stalled.

Engine dead.

The world went silent except for the ringing in my ears and the sound of my own breathing, harsh and ragged and too loud.

I sat there.

Hands locked on the steering wheel.

Body shaking so violently I couldn't have moved even if I'd wanted to.

What just happened?

What the fuck just happened?

Through my rearview mirror I could see the wreckage—the sedan crushed, steam or smoke rising from under the hood, the driver's side door bent at an impossible angle.

Someone was in there.

Someone was trapped.

Because I'd reversed.

Because I'd moved.

Because that Range Rover had been aimed at me and I'd gotten out of the way and now someone else was paying the price.

The Range Rover was still running.

Engine growling.

Reversing away from the impact with controlled precision that made my blood turn cold.

Not panicking.

Not stopping to check on the person they'd just hit.

Just backing up, turning, and preparing to leave the scene.

This wasn't an accident.

The realization crashed over me like ice water.

That car had been trying to hit me.

Had run a red light at full speed aimed directly at my door.

Had only missed because I'd moved at the last possible second.

Someone had just tried to kill me.

My hands fumbled for my phone.

Turned it back on with fingers that wouldn't stop shaking.

The screen lit up—seventeen missed calls from Zane, twelve text messages, three voicemails.

I started to dial 911.

Then stopped.

Because something made me look up.

Some animal instinct crawling up the back of my neck, some primitive warning system saying I was being watched.

My eyes scanned the street.

Empty sidewalks.

Dark storefronts.

A few scattered people who'd stopped to stare at the accident.

And then I saw him.

Standing on the corner maybe fifty feet away, partially hidden in the shadow between streetlights.

A man.

Tall.

Completely still.

Staring directly at me.

Our eyes met across the distance.

And recognition slammed into me with the force of another collision.

Alonso.

Fucking Alonso…

The one who'd looked at me with those intense eyes that had made my skin crawl without me understanding why.

The man who I didn’t end up in good terms the last time we met at that club .

He was just standing there.

Watching.

Not moving to help.

Not calling for assistance.

Not doing anything except observing with an expression I couldn't read from this distance but felt in my bones—something cold, something calculating, something that said this wasn't a coincidence.

What was he doing here?

Why was he—

A horn blared somewhere behind me, making me jump.

I looked away for just a second.

When I looked back, Alonso was gone.

Vanished.

Like he'd never been there at all.

Like I'd imagined him.

Except I hadn't.

I knew what I'd seen.

I knew those eyes.

I knew that face.

Alonso had been here.

At the scene where someone had just tried to run me off the road.

Watching me.

And now he was gone.

Sirens cut through the night, distant but getting closer.

Someone had called 911.

The smoke from the sedan was getting thicker, darker, and I could see movement inside—the driver struggling with the door, trapped by the bent metal.

I should help.

Should get out and do something.

But my body wouldn't respond to what my brain was telling it, wouldn't unlock my hands from the steering wheel or make my legs move or do anything except sit there shaking while my mind tried to process too many things at once.

The attack.

Alonso's presence.

The impossible coincidence that felt like anything but.

My phone buzzed in my lap.

Zane's name flashed across the screen.

Call number eighteen.

I stared at it for a long moment.

All night he'd been trying to reach me.

All night I'd been avoiding him.

And now...

Now I was sitting in the middle of a street after someone had tried to kill me, after I'd seen Alonso watching from the shadows, after everything had gone from terrible to catastrophic in the span of thirty seconds.

I couldn't avoid this call.

Couldn't pretend I was fine.

Couldn't handle this alone.

I answered.

"Olive—" Zane's voice came through desperate and raw and so relieved I could hear it cracking. "Thank god. I've been trying to call you for two hours. Please, just let me explain about Elena, about what you saw, it's not—"

"I just had an accident, seen an accident," I said.

My voice came out flat.

Disconnected from my body.

Like I was reporting someone else's tragedy instead of my own near-death experience.

Silence on the other end of the line.

Complete, absolute silence.

Then: "What?"