A voice message from my wife buzzed through the phone.

"You love punishing people so much, don't you? Cecil took a wrong turn on a delivery, and you boxed him in and slapped him across the face."

"So what if there was a delay? The company still closed the deal in the end! But you nearly ran him off the road!"

"You like playing highway games? I'm going to show you exactly how it feels!"

Cecil took a wrong turn on a delivery?

That wasn't what happened. Not even close.

He'd delivered the shipment to the wrong address, then drove off in the opposite direction. No matter how many times I called to warn him, he never picked up. I had to arrange vehicles far ahead on his route to intercept him and recover the cargo. By the time I personally delivered it to the client, we'd already blown the deadline. I lost my temper and slapped him once.

The only reason the company kept that client was because I gave away the entire shipment for free, not even covering the cost price, and quietly made up the difference out of my own year-end bonus.

From start to finish, I never ran him off the road. I only blocked his path to stop the delivery from going further astray.

Cecil deliberately twisted the story, claiming I'd tried to run him off the highway. It was pure spite. A vindictive lie.

But none of that mattered now.

In the backseat, my father-in-law's face had turned a deep, mottled purple. He looked like he could lose consciousness at any second.

This was no time for grudges.

I jabbed the window button and leaned out, shouting at the top of my lungs. "Gretchen! Your dad is in my car! I need to get him to a hospital! Move!"

The wind tore my words apart. At this speed, the road noise swallowed everything.

Gretchen sat behind the wheel of the car ahead, sunglasses perched on her face. She saw me leaning out. Without a flicker of hesitation, she folded her left side mirror flat against the door and turned away.

She couldn't hear me. She didn't want to.

Cecil watched the whole thing from the truck's driver seat and burst into gleeful applause, slapping his hands together.

I didn't have time to deal with him. I pointed at myself, then jabbed my finger toward the backseat where my father-in-law had slumped over, completely limp.

Cecil froze. Before I could register what he was doing, a voice message came through.

"Well, well. So your old man's dying. No wonder you're driving like a maniac!"

I stared at the phone. Cecil thought Norman was my biological father?

I kept turning toward him, frantically trying to explain, gesturing for him to pull aside.

Cecil just smiled. Said nothing. Watched me the way someone watches a show they're thoroughly enjoying.

We'd been tearing down the highway for ten minutes. Other drivers, spotting the three-car standoff, had started calling the police.

The radio in my car crackled to life first.

"Driver of vehicle plate Golf-Eight-Four-Seven-One, pull over immediately. Cease all aggressive driving. Continued behavior of this nature constitutes a violation of traffic law, and you will be charged with reckless endangerment."

Hope surged through me. I grabbed the radio.

"Officer, I have a critically ill passenger in my vehicle. I cannot stop. The car ahead of me is my wife. She's in a dispute with me and is deliberately blocking my lane."

The radio went silent. The officer switched over to negotiate with Gretchen and Cecil.

Then Gretchen's window rolled down. She reached out and angled the side mirror back, adjusting it with deliberate precision until she was certain I could see her reflection from behind.

She raised her middle finger.

Her voice message landed a second later.

"You actually called the cops, Clarence? You've got some nerve."

"When Cecil made a mistake, you didn't call the police then, did you? No, you chose to slap him instead."

"You think calling the cops is going to help? I'll break every law on the books before I let you pass!"

In the mirror ahead, Gretchen's face was twisted with fury. Her speed dropped again, sharp and sudden, and my car was forced to slow with it.

To my right, Cecil lounged in the truck's driver seat, eyes glittering with amusement.

"Scared yet, Clarence? This is what happens when you cross me."

I was pinned in the far-left passing lane. The guardrail ran along my left. Behind me, a growing line of cars crawled at the pace Gretchen dictated.

The navigation screen told the rest of the story. A massive traffic jam had formed behind us, stretching back as far as the map could show.

I was trapped. No way forward. No way back.

My father-in-law's breathing grew more labored by the second. Without warning, his body pitched forward off the back seat and crumpled to the floor, limbs twitching involuntarily.

I slammed the horn over and over, desperate to get someone's attention, but no one paid me any mind.

Panic had me fumbling, useless. I fired off voice message after voice message to my wife.

"Dad is in my car! He's seriously ill, and I need to get him to the hospital. I am not joking with you!"

But Gretchen stayed silent.

Just when despair was closing in, the two-lane stretch suddenly widened into three lanes, and traffic began to flow. Off to the side, there was an exit ramp leading off the highway, and right beside it sat a hospital.

Hope surged through me. I wrenched the steering wheel toward the exit. But Cecil swung his truck over and planted it squarely alongside me, boxing me in.

No matter how I turned the wheel, it was useless. I was pinned in place.

His voice came through the speaker, dripping with mockery.

"Trying to run? Not a chance."

All I could do was watch the exit disappear behind me.

I pounded the steering wheel and blared the horn until my palms ached. Cecil only laughed louder.

When I twisted around to check on my father-in-law, he was lying motionless on the floor. Not a sound.

"Dad! Don't pass out on me. Hang on!"

I kept turning back, shouting at him, trying to pull him back to consciousness.

He didn't move. He didn't respond. I had no idea if he was alive or dead.

I hated them. Both of them.

If they hadn't boxed me in out of sheer spite, I would have made it to the hospital. The man who had given me everything wouldn't be lying there, hovering between life and death.

I rolled down my window, thrust my arm out, and pointed straight at Cecil in the truck beside me.

"Cecil, you son of a bitch! You're killing him!"

Cecil sat in the driver's seat and glanced toward my back seat. A flicker of surprise crossed his face.

Then it was replaced by pure, gleeful satisfaction.

His message came through a moment later.

"Ha! My own father never even slapped me, but you had the nerve to. Now your old man's dead, isn't he?"

"Karma. That's what this is. Karma!"

I freed one hand, steadied my phone, and snapped a photo of my father-in-law crumpled in the back seat. I sent it straight to my wife.

"Gretchen! Get it through your head. I am trying to get our father to a hospital. I am driving to save his life!"

Her expression on the screen was dark as a storm. She reached across her car, rummaging for something, then rolled down her window and extended her arm.

A steel wrench glinted in her fist.

I realized what she was about to do.

My heart seized. I screamed, frozen in place.

"Gretchen, no!"

The next instant, her fingers unclenched. The wrench hurtled through the air and slammed into my windshield.

A deafening crack.

The glass splintered into a massive spiderweb of fractures radiating from the point of impact.

I flinched and jerked the wheel. The left side of my car ground against the guardrail, showering sparks, the shriek of metal on metal lasting a full ten seconds before I finally snapped back to my senses.

I gripped the wheel with both hands and straightened the car out.

Gretchen's voice tore through the phone, raw with fury.

"You actually had the nerve to photoshop a picture to scare me?"

"Clarence, there is nothing between me and Cecil. I've told you a thousand times. Stop running to my father every time you have some petty grievance!"

"I warned you. My father has a bad heart. He can't handle your jealous, small-minded drama!"

The injustice burned through me. Her father had seen the photos she posted on her Instagram story, the ones of her looking far too cozy with Cecil. He knew we'd been fighting. That was why he'd come to see us quietly, to smooth things over.

A memory surfaced unbidden. Our wedding day. The aisle blanketed in flowers.

Gretchen had held my hand, eyes brimming with emotion, and spoken her vows to me.

"In this life, I will always stand by your side. I will always love you. I will never choose to hurt you."

But now?

She was my wife, yet all she cared about was standing up for her college junior. She'd even thrown a wrench at my car, putting me in real danger.

Have you forgotten, Gretchen? You're my wife!

A siren wailed from behind. A highway patrol car had pulled onto the shoulder and was gaining on us. A voice blared through the loudspeaker.

"Driver of the Ferrari ahead, cease your dangerous driving immediately and pull over!"

But Gretchen didn't slow down one bit. If anything, her voice on the phone grew even more hostile.

"This could've been settled if you'd just swallowed your pride and admitted fault. But no, you had to blow it up into this!"

"This whole mess is your doing. Just you wait!"

The GPS chimed in.

"Attention: highway tunnel ahead in five hundred meters. Road surface is wet. Please reduce speed."

All three of us barreled into the tunnel.

There was no shoulder lane inside. The patrol car had no choice but to stop at the tunnel entrance.

The overhead lights were dim, casting a sickly glow that barely illuminated a hundred meters of road ahead. The danger of driving at this speed multiplied instantly.

A voice message came through from Gretchen.

"Clarence, I'm giving you one last chance. Pull over right now and go take the blame for Cecil!"

My hands were shaking on the steering wheel. I roared back at her.

"You can't stop in a goddamn tunnel, Gretchen!"

She didn't respond. Instead, the Ferrari's engine screamed as she floored the accelerator, pulling away from me in seconds.

Before I could even process what was happening, I caught movement in my peripheral vision. Cecil, behind the wheel of his truck in the next lane, was grinning. A slow, sinister grin.

He slammed on the gas and wrenched the steering wheel to the left.

The truck's cab crossed the lane divider and invaded my lane.

The realization hit me like ice water: he was going to use the truck to pin my car.

There wasn't enough time to accelerate and escape. But if I braked, the body of his truck would sideswipe me, and if I ended up wedged underneath the trailer, I'd be dead on impact.

All I could do was watch as Cecil drove the truck's cab straight into the front of my car.

A deafening crash.

The right side of my car crumpled like a tin can. The left side was crushed against the tunnel wall. Metal shrieked against concrete as the wreckage scraped forward for dozens of meters before finally grinding to a halt.

My car sat pinned inside the highway tunnel. Other vehicles screamed past, inches away.

Inside the cabin, I gripped my head with both hands, trying to steady myself through the searing pain. My vision swam. Even with my seatbelt on, the force of the collision had thrown my skull against the interior. Something warm and wet trickled from my scalp down my cheek. White smoke poured from under the crumpled hood.

The scene was carnage.

Cecil shoved open the truck door and jumped down, staring at me with a look of pure satisfaction.

"That's what you get for slapping me, Clarence."

"Gretchen told me to do it herself, by the way. Honestly, an old man like you should just get lost already."

"Haven't you figured it out yet? She loves me now."

I couldn't summon the strength to respond. In the distance, headlights swung around. Gretchen had turned the Ferrari back.

She stepped out in her tailored pencil skirt, long legs crossing the distance to Cecil's side.

Her gaze fell on me in the driver's seat, battered and bleeding. Something flickered in her eyes, a flash of something almost like pain, and she took an involuntary step toward me.

"Clarence, are you... are you okay?"

But then Cecil called out to her, his voice warm and familiar. "Gretchen."

The softness in her eyes froze over. She looked at me, and when she spoke again, her voice was cold.

"Clarence, you brought this on yourself."

"You were the one in the wrong. You refused to admit it. This is the consequence."