Chapter 72 - 0072: How Did You Find Me

Chapter 72: Chapter 0072: How Did You Find Me

Elena’s Point Of View

"Elena!"

His voice cut straight through the deafening roar of the storm, sharp, raw, and bleeding with an uncharacteristic, terrifying panic. I had never heard him sound like that before - not once in all the weeks I’d known him, not even when he was furious enough to put his fist through a wall.

Before I could even process his face through the cascading rain, the door of his sleek sports car slammed open. Jaxx was out in the downpour in a fraction of a second. He didn’t care about the torrential sheets of water plastering his dark hair to his forehead; he didn’t care about the freezing wind tearing through the trees.

His burning, dark eyes scanned me from head to toe in a single, desperate sweep... taking in the blood dripping down my temple, my mud-caked navy dress, and the sickening, unnatural angle of my overturned car. Something in his expression cracked, as though the sight of me broken on the ground had shattered some careful mask he’d worn his entire life.

I had always thought of him as untouchable, carved from something harder than other men. Watching that certainty crumble in real time frightened me almost as much as the crash itself.

For a heartbeat, the cocky, untouchable Jaxx vanished. In his place stood a man completely undone by terror, stripped of every ounce of the arrogance I’d come to expect from him. It was strange, seeing him laid bare like that... strange and, though I hated to admit it, oddly comforting, as if his fear proved I mattered to someone in this ruined night.

"Jesus Christ, Elena!" he roared over the thunder, closing the distance between us in three long, frantic strides.

He didn’t hesitate for a single second. Without caring that he wore a pristine, custom-tailored white button-down shirt, Jaxx dropped straight to his knees into the freezing, saturated mud beside me.

The fabric darkened instantly, soaking through, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. A man like him, who probably measured his wardrobe in thousands of dollars, hadn’t so much as glanced down at the ruin spreading across his knees.

"Don’t move, don’t you fucking move," he breathed, his large, warm hands hovering over me for an agonizing second, terrified he might hurt me worse. I could see the tremor in his fingers, the barely restrained panic warring with his need to be gentle. It was such a small thing, that tremor, but it told me more about him than any of his usual bravado ever had.

"Jaxx... I..." My voice emerged as a broken, pitiful rasp, the words dissolving before I could finish them.

Before I could try again, his arms slid under my body... one supporting my trembling back, the other scooping beneath my bare, muddy knees. He lifted me effortlessly from the dirt, pulling me flush against his broad chest. The instant warmth of his body hit me like a furnace, a harsh contrast to the hypothermia settling into my bones.

He held me cradled against his heart like I was made of fragile, precious glass, his chest heaving violently against mine, and for a moment I swore I felt it pounding as hard as my own. There was something almost unbearable about being held like that, as if my body had forgotten how safety felt and was only now relearning the shape of it.

With me held tightly in his left arm, he bent down without breaking stride, his right hand swooping down to snag my mud-covered leather purse and my shattered phone from the earth. Not once did his hold on me loosen, not even slightly.

He turned his head toward the smoking, upside-down wreck of my sedan. His dark eyes locked onto the slashed sidewalls of my rear tires, and in an instant, the terror on his face morphed into something feral, dark, and utterly murderous. His jaw tightened so hard I heard his teeth grind. A vein pulsed wildly at his temple.

The transformation frightened me almost as much as the crash itself had... this glimpse of a man capable of violence I couldn’t fully fathom. I wondered, in that fractured moment, just how many layers of him I had yet to see, and whether I truly wanted to uncover them all.

I could feel the violent tension vibrating through his rigid muscles. "Whoever did this," he said, voice dropping to something low and lethal, "they are going to regret their very fucking existence."

He turned abruptly, striding toward his idling car. He yanked the passenger door open with his elbow and gently, meticulously lowered me into the warm leather seat, his movements suddenly careful again, as though the rage had been folded away and tucked somewhere out of sight.

He reached over me, his scent... expensive cologne, rain, and raw leather, engulfing my senses as he carefully pulled the seatbelt across my lap and clicked it into place, ensuring it didn’t press against my wounded shoulder or bruised ribs. I found myself staring at the sharp line of his jaw as he worked, still clenched tight with fury he was visibly forcing himself to swallow for my sake.

"Stay still, Bambina," he growled softly, his thumb gently wiping a smudge of cold mud from my cheek, the touch lingering half a second longer than necessary.

He slammed the passenger door, ran around the hood of his car through the torrential downpour, and threw himself into the driver’s seat. He slammed his door shut, instantly muting the raging storm outside. The cabin was warm, the hum of the powerful engine vibrating beneath us, and for the first time in what felt like hours, I let myself breathe.

I collapsed against the plush headrest, my breathing ragged, my head spinning violently. I turned my eyes toward him as he threw the car into gear and slammed his foot on the accelerator, the vehicle leaping forward onto the rain-slicked highway at high speed.

"How... how did you know I was out here?" I wheezed out, my chest aching with every shallow breath. "How did you find me, Jaxx?"

Jaxx kept his eyes glued to the dark, storm-swept road ahead, his large hands gripping the leather steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned bone-white.

"Simple," he muttered, his voice a low, rough rumble. "Gut feeling. My chest started burning ten minutes ago, and I knew your beautiful, stubborn ass was in trouble."

Despite the excruciating pain throbbing through my entire body, despite the blood dripping into my lashes, I rolled my eyes weakly at his ridiculous response.

It felt strange to find room for even a flicker of amusement amid the wreckage of the night, but something about him made it impossible not to. Maybe it was survival instinct, some small, stubborn part of me refusing to let the terror win completely.

The corner of his mouth twitched, a faint, dark smirk touching his lips as he caught my reaction in his peripheral vision, though his focus never wavered from the road.

"Don’t roll your eyes at me while you’re bleeding on my leather, sweetheart," he said softly, the lethal edge in his tone softening just a fraction. "But before we deal with anything else, we need to get you cleaned up. You’re drenched, you’re freezing, and you look like you just fought a bear."

I shivered violently, crossing my good arm over my chest as the car sped through the darkness. "Where are you taking me, Jaxx? I need a hospital, or a hotel..."

Jaxx didn’t even turn his head. He just pressed deeper on the gas pedal, the speedometer climbing.

"When we get there," he said smoothly, "you’ll know."

For a few minutes, the car sat in total silence, neither of us saying anything, the only sound the rhythmic slap of wipers fighting a losing battle against the rain. I studied his profile in the dim glow of the dashboard... the hard set of his mouth, the restless flicker of his eyes toward the mirrors, as if he expected danger to come pouring out of the darkness at any moment.

"Looks like someone slashed your tire," he added after a moment of heavy silence, his tone calm on the surface but underlined with something terrifyingly dark. Gravel edged each word, as though they’d been dragged over hot coals. His gaze flicked to me in the rearview mirror... long, heavy, like fire licking bare skin. "Or maybe fate just wanted you to see me again."

I swallowed hard, clenching my jaw against the throbbing pain in my head. "You’re following me now?" My voice came out low, trembling, but not entirely from the cold.

A slow, infuriating smile touched his lips. "Call it coincidence. But first, we need to get you out of those soaked rags before you catch a fever and die on me."

I should have argued. I should have demanded he take me straight to an emergency room, or insisted he leave me at a public station. But my body betrayed me. Exhaustion and heartbreak had hollowed me out completely... Graham’s betrayal, Lillian’s poison, all of it pressing down until I could barely think straight.

Against every rational instinct, Jaxx’s dangerous presence felt like the only solid thing in a collapsing universe, an anchor I hated needing. Some quiet, traitorous part of me wondered when exactly I had started measuring safety by his nearness instead of my own two feet.

My wet hair clung to my face, my soaked navy dress plastering uncomfortably to my skin, water dripping steadily onto his pristine floor mats.

Without a word, Jaxx reached over and shrugged out of his heavy suit jacket while keeping one hand firm on the wheel. The movement was fluid, purposeful, practiced in a way that suggested he rarely hesitated over anything. He leaned toward me, his hand brushing my bare arm just barely, and the sudden, radiating heat of his body made the freezing rain outside feel like a distant memory.

He draped the heavy jacket around my shoulders, its weight anchoring me. His scent... woodsmoke, rain, amber, and something dangerously addictive, curled around me like invisible fingers, and despite everything, I found myself leaning into it, letting it fill the hollow, frightened space inside my chest.

And then he leaned closer, close enough that I felt it: his breath, hot, steady, and intoxicating, fanning against the sensitive curve of my neck. He winked at me, dark eyes flashing with wicked mischief, and straightened up. I scoffed weakly, turning my head toward the window, but said nothing, unwilling to admit how my pulse had stuttered at the nearness of him.

The rain came down like it had a personal vendetta. Heavy, blinding sheets splashed against the windshield, the world outside a blur of city lights and rushing water.

Jaxx didn’t say another word for twenty minutes.

His fingers gripped the wheel tight, his jaw working as he cut through the downpour like a man on a mission. I pressed his jacket tighter around myself, the leather seats beneath me damp from how soaked I was. My dress clung to my skin, practically see-through now under the dim dashboard lights, molded to every curve.

My bra had given up entirely, my nipples poking shamelessly through the thin fabric in the chilly air. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, mortified and too exhausted to do much else about it.

"Where are we going, Jaxx?" I asked again, my voice low and rasping.

He glanced at me, his dark eyes unreadable. "Someplace dry."

Minutes passed in simmering silence until he pulled off the main highway into an upscale, quiet shopping district, stopping right in front of a high-end luxury boutique, its golden signage glowing soft and warm through the torrents of rain. Before I could ask anything else, he killed the engine.

"Wait here," he said, his tone authoritative, and got out into the storm without waiting for a response.

I watched through the rain-streaked window as he strode straight up to the dark boutique, rain cascading off his shoulders. Even completely soaked, with his white shirt clinging to his back and outlining every hard cut of muscle, the man walked like he owned every inch of the earth.

I hated that my heart skipped a frantic beat at the sight. I hated that I noticed the breadth of his shoulders, the strength in his stride, the sheer certainty in every step he took.

More than that, I hated that after everything I’d suffered tonight, I didn’t want to stop noticing him. It felt disloyal somehow, to my own pain, to the wreckage of my marriage still smoldering behind me, and yet I couldn’t summon the will to look away.

A few minutes later, he returned, holding a crisp boutique bag in one hand and a large, heavy-looking garment draped over his arm.

He yanked open the passenger door, shutting out the wind as he shoved the heavy coat into my lap. "Put this on over that wet dress. You’re freezing."

I hesitated, staring at the high-end label. "You went shopping? The store is closed."

"No. I broke in and robbed the place," he deadpanned, staring at me with a completely straight face before his tone dropped into a low growl. "Of course I went shopping, Bambina. Now put it on."

A tiny, involuntary smile touched my lips despite the agony racking my frame.

The coat felt soft, heavy, and warm... thick cashmere lined with pure silk. I slid my good arm into it, sighing out loud as the incredible warmth wrapped around my shivering torso. He handed me the boutique bag, and I peeked inside. A sleek black cashmere top, thick thermal leggings, brand-new seamless underwear, and even a pair of lined leather ankle boots waited within, folded with a care that seemed almost incongruous coming from him.

All in my exact size.

I blinked, looking up at his sharp profile. "How did you...?"

"I pay attention," he said simply, turning the key and starting the car again.

That simple sentence did something terrifying to my chest. I pay attention. Graham hadn’t known my dress size in two years, but I’d never let myself dwell on it, telling myself he was busy, that I should be more considerate of his time. Sitting here now, wrapped in Jaxx’s attentiveness, the old excuse felt suddenly, achingly thin.

I turned my face toward the window so he wouldn’t see the sting building behind my eyes, unwilling to let a stranger’s kindness undo me faster than my husband’s cruelty ever had.

As he drove us deeper into the private hills, the quiet returned. Only this time, it wasn’t awkward. It simmered with a thick, heavy tension that pressed against my skin like static before a lightning strike.

I shifted uncomfortably in the warm leather seat, my thighs brushing together under the cashmere coat. The sudden, hot wetness between my legs had nothing to do with the freezing rain anymore, and the realization sent a fresh wave of confusion crashing through my already battered heart.

I tried not to look at him. I tried to ignore the lethal aura radiating from his side of the car, tried to ignore the way my broken body responded to just being near him, as though every nerve I owned had decided to betray me in a single night.

"I shouldn’t be here with you," I whispered into the dark cabin.

"But you are," he said, the words settling over me like a verdict I had no power to appeal.