All the blood rushed from Aria’s face, leaving her as pale as a ghost. The world outside the tinted windows seemed to tilt on its axis.

"Damien," Aria choked out, the word tearing at her throat. "Is that... is that what I think it is?"

Damien didn’t take his eyes off the road. His jaw was clenched so tight the muscles ticked in his cheek. He aggressively downshifted, the twin-turbo V8 engine roaring as he pushed the car past a hundred and forty miles an hour.

"Stay calm."

"Stay calm?!" Aria shrieked, her voice pitching up into a breathless squeal. "We are sitting on top of an explosive!"

"Aria," Damien snapped. "Look at me. Breathe. Freaking out only fogs the brain, and panic causes mistakes. Breathe."

Aria tried. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced a jagged intake of air through her nose, but her heart was hammering a chaotic rhythm against her ribs. The adrenaline was corrosive, burning through her veins.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"It’s speeding up!" Aria panicked, her hands flying up to grip the sides of her head. "It’s beeping faster! How much time do we have?!"

"I don’t know," Damien gritted out.

He glanced into the side mirror.

Emerging from the blind spot behind the black truck were two black motorcycles. The riders were hunched over the handlebars, dressed head-to-toe in dark tactical gear, their faces obscured by tinted visors. They seamlessly peeled away from the truck, closing the distance with terrifying speed.

Damien’s golden eyes darkened. "Fuck," he swore under his breath and slammed his foot down harder. The Maserati surged forward, the G-force pinning Aria flat against the bucket seat.

"There is a compartment directly beneath your seat," Damien barked over the roar of the engine. "Reach down. Feel for the metal latch. Pull it." 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Aria unbuckled her seatbelt and shoved her hand blindly into the dark space beneath the leather seat. Her fingers grazed cold metal. She gripped the latch and yanked.

A hidden drawer slid out on tracks.

Aria stared down into the compartment. Resting on a bed of custom-cut foam was a matte-black Glock 19, three loaded magazines of hollow-point ammunition, and an industrial-grade Kevlar vest.

Aria’s eyes blew wide.

"Are you planning on shooting them?!" Aria yelled.

"They’re trying to force us into a bottleneck," Damien explained, his eyes darting between the road and the mirrors. "There hasn’t been a single vehicle passing in the opposite direction for three miles. The road ahead is blocked off. They are boxing us in."

He took his right hand off the steering wheel.

"Take the wheel," Damien commanded.

Aria froze. "What?!"

"Take the fucking wheel, Aria!"

Aria scrambled across the center console, her hands flying out to grip the steering wheel. The moment Damien let go, the car swerved violently to the left. Aria shrieked, her biceps straining as she wrestled the incredibly sensitive steering column back into a straight line.

They were pushing a hundred and fifty miles an hour. One wrong twitch of her wrists, and they would barrel roll into the trees and explode.

"Hold it steady," Damien ordered.

Without warning, Damien reached down and grabbed the hem of his crisp white dress shirt. With a single yank, he ripped the shirt open. Pearl buttons popped off the fabric, flying across the cabin and ricocheting off the dashboard like shrapnel.

"What are you doing?!" Aria screamed, white-knuckling the steering wheel. "Why are you doing a striptease while we are literally seconds away from dying?!"

Damien ignored her. He grabbed the Kevlar vest from the compartment and swiftly shoved it over his broad, bare shoulders, securing the Velcro straps tightly across his chest.

He firmly gripped the steering wheel, seamlessly taking back control of the vehicle.

Aria collapsed back into the passenger seat, her chest heaving, her hands shaking so badly she could barely clench them into fists.

Damien snatched the Glock from the compartment. He smoothly racked the slide, chambering a round with a sharp, metallic clack, and tucked the weapon into the waistband of his trousers.

He turned his head slightly, locking his eyes onto hers.

"Listen to me very carefully," Damien said, his voice dropping into a low, deadly serious register that cut right through her soul. "No matter what happens when we stop this car, you stay behind me."

Aria stared at him, the air vanishing from her lungs.

"If I go down," Damien ordered, his gaze unwavering, "you do not hesitate. You do not look back. You use my body as a shield, and you run into the tree line. Do you understand me?"

Aria sat perfectly still.

The rhythmic beep-beep-beep of the bomb ticked beneath her feet. The roar of the engine filled the cabin.

"Are you out of your mind?!" Aria shrieked at the top of her lungs.

Damien blinked, genuinely thrown off guard by her reaction.

Aria unbuckled her seatbelt and lunged across the center console. She grabbed him by the lapels of his ruined, unbuttoned dress shirt, almost climbing onto his lap while he was driving a hundred and fifty miles an hour.

"Use your body as a shield?!" Aria screamed, her emerald eyes wild, blazing with a manic fury. "Do you honestly think I am going to survive you?!"

"Aria, sit down—"

"No!" she roared, shaking him by the collar. "If you die, Damien Sinclair, I am taking that gun out of your waistband and I am blowing my own brains out right next to you!"

Damien froze.

"I am not surviving you!" Aria spat, tears of desperate rage spilling hot and fast down her cheeks. "’Til death do us part’ is a threat, Damien! We die together, or not at all!"

Damien stared at her.

The Maserati was flying down a dead-end highway. Two, armed men were gaining on their tail. There was a ticking bomb strapped to the undercarriage of the chassis.

And Damien Sinclair had never been more turned on in his entire life.

"You are completely insane," Damien murmured, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that betrayed exactly how deeply she affected him.

"I’m your wife," Aria sneered, shoving his chest and sliding back into the passenger seat. "Of course, I’m insane."

She wiped the tears off her cheeks with the back of her hand, her breathing ragged. She looked into the side mirror.

The two motorcycles were flanking them, closing the distance.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

The tempo of the bomb’s metronome suddenly doubled in speed.

"Damien," Aria said.

Her voice wasn’t shaking anymore. It was dead calm.

"What?" Damien asked.

"This isn’t Speed," Aria stated flatly.

"Stop the car," she ordered, pulling her hair back into a messy bun. "I’m going to disable the bomb."