The Hollow Feeling
RONNY’S POV
My head hung low, forehead pressed to the edge of the stretcher, and for a terrifying moment, I thought it was over.
She was gone.
The words echoed inside me like a curse I couldn’t shake.
The medics’ voices blurred into white noise, the hiss of oxygen, the relentless scream of the monitors. And then—like a miracle I didn’t deserve—her chest lifted.
A ragged gasp tore through the silence, raw and desperate, like someone breaking free from drowning. Air. She was breathing again.
My heart nearly gave out. My head shot up, vision swimming with relief so intense it felt like pain.
“She’s back,” one medic barked, already moving. “Keep monitoring. Stabilize her for transport.”
I was shoved back against the wall of the ambulance as they swarmed around her, attaching more wires, adjusting the mask, calling out numbers. I didn’t care what they said. I didn’t care what it meant.
She was alive.
That was all that mattered.
Alive.
The word pulsed through me, wild and broken.
I reached for her hand even as the paramedic pushed me aside. “Sir, please—”
But I couldn’t let go. My fingers closed around hers, trembling. She was still unconscious, skin clammy, but she was warm. God, she was warm.
“Don’t stop,” I begged, my voice hoarse. “Don’t stop working on her. Please.”
“We won’t,” the medic said firmly. “But you need to give us space.”
I forced myself to step back, but my eyes never left her. Not for a second.
The ambulance screamed through the streets, red and blue lights painting the night into a nightmare kaleidoscope. My chest hurt from how hard I was breathing, my heart a wild drum trying to tear itself apart.
When the doors finally burst open at the hospital, everything moved too fast. Voices shouted codes, a team rushed forward, the stretcher disappeared behind swinging ER doors.
And I was left standing there.
Alone.
A nurse stopped me with an apologetic look. “You’ll have to wait outside, sir.”
I wanted to fight. To claw my way past her. To never let Liliana out of my sight again. But my body gave in before my pride could. My knees buckled, my chest heaved, and I stumbled into the hard plastic of a waiting room chair.
That was when the hollow began to spread.
It started in my chest, a gnawing emptiness that felt like someone had carved me open and stolen something vital. My lungs still pulled air, my heart still pumped blood, but none of it felt real. None of it mattered.
Because she was behind those doors. And I couldn’t follow.
I bent forward, elbows braced on my knees, and pressed my palms into my face.
God, it hurt.
The first woman I’d ever let mean something was fighting for her life, and I couldn’t do a damn thing. I couldn’t hold her hand. I couldn’t shield her. All I could do was sit there like a useless coward while strangers decided her fate.
No. No, I wasn’t going to let it end like this.
Whoever did this—whoever had tampered with her brakes, thinking they could take her from me—they had no idea what they’d started. They’d tried to break me, but they’d only unleashed something far worse.
I was going to find them. And when I did, they’d wish they’d never been born.
The thought burned like acid in my veins, but before it could fully consume me, my phone rang.
The shrill sound jolted through the quiet waiting room like a knife. I ripped it out of my pocket with shaking hands.
Hardin.
My throat tightened. Tonight was supposed to be different. Tonight, I was supposed to be at dinner with Liliana, introducing her to everyone properly. We should have been laughing, drinking, celebrating, not—this.
I swallowed hard and answered.
“Where the hell are you?” Hardin’s voice crackled through the line, sharp but light in the way it got when he was half-distracted. Music and chatter buzzed in the background.
My jaw clenched. I couldn’t even find the words at first.
“Ronny?”
“She—” My voice cracked. I forced it out. “Liliana. She got into an accident.”
Silence. Then, sharper: “What?”
“She’s in the ER right now,” I said, my words tumbling out, jagged and broken. “Car crash. Someone tampered with her brakes—I know it. She almost died, Hardin. She—she stopped breathing in the ambulance.”
There was a long pause, then the sound of his chair scraping. The party noise behind him faded like someone had shoved the world on mute.
“How is she?” His voice was different now. Hard, clipped. The way he got when business turned bloody.
I dragged a hand down my face. “I don’t know. They won’t tell me anything yet. She’s still unconscious.”
“We’ll be there.”
“No—” My protest was automatic, hollow. “You don’t have to. Stay at the dinner. I’ll handle it—”
The line went dead.
I stared at the screen, heart pounding. They weren’t coming. They couldn’t be. Tonight was too important. They had lives, plans, obligations. This wasn’t their burden.
My legs gave out beneath me, and I dropped into the chair again, burying my head in my hands.
Minutes bled into hours. Or maybe seconds. I couldn’t tell. The sterile hallway stretched around me like a prison, every tick of the clock another reminder that I had no control, no power, nothing but waiting.
My chest hurt from how hard I was gripping myself, fists digging into my temples. My whole body shook with the weight of what-ifs.
What if she didn’t make it?
What if the last thing she remembered was leaving me angry?
What if I never got to tell her how much she meant to me?
The thoughts strangled me until footsteps echoed down the hall.
Heavy, purposeful. More than one pair.
I lifted my head, expecting maybe a nurse, maybe a doctor with news.
But my breath froze in my chest.
They were all there.
Vera. Mark. Jess.
And Hardin—his arm around Ariana, her face pale with worry.
They’d come.
They’d really come.
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