Chapter 3 - The Threat in the StormThree weeks after the ICU incident, a sudden blizzard paralyzed Chicago, burying the city under two feet of snow and sub-zero temperatures.
I was driving my eleven-year-old Honda Civic home from a double shift at 1:00 A.M. when my rear tire blew out on a deserted stretch of Lake Shore Drive. The car skidded violently across the icy patch, slamming hard into the snowbank near the dark harbor wall.
My engine died.
The freezing wind howled through the cracked window. My heater failed instantly, and my phone battery dropped to two percent in the extreme cold.
"No, no, no..." I whimpered, shivering violently as I tried to turn the key. The ignition clicked flatly.
Within ten minutes, the temperature inside the car plummeted below zero. My fingers went numb, my lips turning blue as I curled my body on the driver's seat, clutching my thin coat around my shoulders.
CRUNCH... CRUNCH... CRUNCH.
Heavy boots crunched against the deep snow outside my door.
Through the frost-covered glass, I saw two bright halogen flashlights beam through the dark storm.
The driver's door was thrown wide open!
A massive wool coat was wrapped around my freezing frame before I could even speak. Large, warm hands lifted me effortlessly out of the wrecked car and into the heated interior of a familiar, midnight-black armored sedan.
I collapsed onto the soft leather seats, gasping for air as the warm air purifiers thawed my skin.
Sitting beside me, pulling a warm cashmere blanket over my legs, holding a thermos of hot tea, was Julian Voss.
His storm-gray eyes were wild with a dark, terrifying panic I had never seen before.
"Emma!" Julian barked, his voice rough with suppressed emotion as he held my trembling hands between his large, warm palms. "Are you hurt?! Talk to me!"
"J-Julian..." I stammered, my teeth chattering uncontrollably as I looked at him. "How... how did you find me?"
Marcus Vance—Julian's chief of private security—looked back from the driver's seat. "Don Julian tracks your hospital shifts, Miss Reed. When your car stopped moving on Lake Shore Drive three minutes ago, we pulled three red lights to reach you."
I stared at Julian in total, speech-bound shock.
He had been watching over me. For three weeks, while I worked my long hospital shifts, the most feared man in Chicago had quietly kept an invisible shield around my life.
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Julian didn't apologize. He reached out, his thumb gently stroking my frozen cheekbone, pulling me against his broad chest, letting his warm heartbeat anchor my shivering body.
"You told me three weeks ago that being exhausted doesn't mean you should stop being careful, Emma," Julian whispered into my hair, his deep baritone thick with an unbroken, fierce devotion. "I wasn't going to let the cold take you."
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