Her face contorts. “Because he’s dirt-fucking-poor, Gideon! He doesn’t have money! He doesn’t have a future! I neededmoney. I needed alife.I needed… stability.”
Silas swears under his breath. Chad takes another step back.
Abi swings the gun wildly between all four of us—me, Dad, Gideon, and Silas.
“You all think you’rebetterthan me,” she snarls. “You think you get to judge me? ME? I had to do everything alone!”
“No,” comes a voice behind us. “You didn’t.”
Abi’s eyes widen when she sees Talon. Minxy’s beside him, their hands clasped together as they face their mom. Talon’s dark brown eyes burn behind his glasses; Minxy’s stare is sharp and too old for her messy ponytail and oversized hoodie.
Abi’s entire soul seems to fall out of her body.
“No,” she whispers, shaking her head in jerky little motions. “No, no, no… You’re supposed to be at college, and Minxy, you’re missing. I have a PI out looking for you. Where have you been?”
“We know everything,” Talon says.
Abi’s hand trembles around the gun. “Talon… baby… please…”
“Don’t call me that,” he spits.
Minxy steps forward, chin high. “I heard you. All of it. I saw the blood. I saw the dent in the wall. I saw the mess you left after you murdered Todd. And you weren’t even sorry.”
Abi’s breath breaks apart like shattered glass.
“I protected you,” she cries. “I PROTECTED YOU!”
“No,” Minxy says softly. “You protected yourself.”
“We would have been thrown out on the street. Penniless! Homeless!” Abi raises the gun again—higher this time, more desperate, shaking so violently I’m terrified it’ll go off by accident.
Gideon shifts forward. Silas blocks me entirely with his body. Talon moves in front of Minxy.
And for a split second, the world holds perfectly still.
Then Abi breaks.
Completely.
Her face crumples. Her shoulders collapse inward. The gun dips low, then trembles higher again. Her tears fall in fast, frantic streams.
“I didn’t mean any of it,” she sobs. “I didn’t mean for any of it…I didn’t…”
Gideon’s voice is lethal in its softness. “Put the gun down.”
She shakes her head violently. “I can’t. I can’t let you all take everything from me. I can’t lose everything again. I can’t?—”
“Abi,” Dad says softly. “Put it down.”
She looks at him.
Really looks.
For the first time, she must see him not as a resource, or a bank account—but as a man realizing the woman he loved is a monster.
And something inside her snaps.
Abi lifts the gun to her own temple.
