The world did not slow down. It fractured.
The crack of Marco’s rifle was a period at the end of a sentence of chaos. Isabella watched, her scream trapped in her throat, as the Lamborghini’s rear tire exploded in a puff of black smoke and shredded rubber. The car, a creature of pure momentum and fury, became a dead weight. It slewed violently, its back end whipping around like the tail of a dying dragon. The shriek of metal grinding against asphalt was a sound from a nightmare.
It spun, a dizzying pinwheel of orange against the gray cliffs, once, twice, before slamming broadside into the rocky embankment that separated the road from the sheer drop to the sea. The impact was a sickening, final crunch.
For a moment, there was only the whine of the damaged engine and the relentless beat of
