Chapter 6 - The Edge of Survival
The driver’s side of the sedan was mangled, the door crushed inward against the frame, but the reinforced safety glass of the window had completely shattered during the descent, leaving an open portal into the cabin. The interior smelled intensely of deployed airbag powder, ozone, and hot engine coolant.
Inside, Dante Moretti was slumped against the center console.
The curtain airbags had deployed, hanging like limp, gray shrouds around the cabin. Dante was conscious, but clearly disoriented, his dark head tilted forward against his chest, his breathing heavy and uneven. His open-collar shirt was torn at the shoulder, revealing the taut, bruised muscle beneath, and a thin line of rainwater and soot traced down the side of his jaw. His pale gray eyes were half-open, blinking slowly against the haze of the impact.
The car shuddered violently beneath Cara’s hands. A sickening, metallic groan vibrated through the chassis as the rear wheels, hanging over empty space, shifted another inch downward toward the gorge.
“Dante!” Cara yelled, thrusting her upper body through the open window frame, ignoring the jagged remnants of tempered glass pressing into the fabric of her dress.
Her hands found his shoulders. His skin was burning hot through the soaked cotton of his shirt, his broad frame tense, his muscles knotted like iron cables.
At the sound of her voice, Dante’s head snapped up.
The disorientation in his eyes cleared with terrifying speed, replaced by the instinctual, lethal awareness of an apex predator. He saw the face of a woman—drenched in rain, blonde hair plastered to her cheeks, hazel eyes blazing with fierce, desperate determination.
“What...” Dante’s voice was a low, gravelly rasp, rough from the chemical powder of the airbags. He tried to move, but his left leg was pinned beneath the crumpled lower dashboard, and the seatbelt was locked tight across his chest.
“Your brakes were cut,” Cara spoke rapidly, her voice trembling with adrenaline but razor-sharp in focus. “I heard them at Bellini’s. Vanessa and a man in a gray suit. They planned it. You have to get out of the car right now—the tree isn't going to hold!”
Dante’s eyes widened slightly—not in fear of the drop, but at the mention of his wife's name. A shadow of profound, dangerous comprehension swept across his features. The pieces of the puzzle assembled in his mind with terrifying clarity.
Then, the trunk of the massive pine tree groaned.
A sharp crack echoed through the wood as several primary roots tore free from the rain-soaked soil beneath the ledge. The car tilted another two degrees, the front bumper scraping agonizingly against the rock shelf.
Dante looked up at Cara. He saw the frail frame of the waitress, her small hands clutching his collar, leaning entirely into a vehicle that was teetering on the edge of oblivion. If the car fell now, the downward suction would pull her down with it.
“Get away from the car,” Dante ordered, his voice suddenly hard, commanding, and absolute. “Back up the slope. Now.”
“No,” Cara shouted back, her fingers tightening into the fabric of his shirt with incredible, stubborn force. “I’m getting you out!”
“Leave me!” Dante roared, his hand coming up, his large, tattooed fingers gripping her wrist to shove her backward toward safety. “It’s sliding! You’ll go over the edge!”
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Cara didn't flinch. She leaned further through the window, her face inches from his, her hazel eyes locking onto his pale gray stare with an intensity that completely arrested him.
“Not happening,” she snarled.
