I nod. “I won’t.”
And I hang up.
I dial 911 with one hand, the other snapping the case shut and stuffing it into the glove box. I slip the weapon into my purse and secure it the way he drilled into me: barrel down, safety on, no room for error.
When the dispatcher answers, my voice is surprisingly steady. “My name is Sable Hawthorne. My son Sebastian was just abducted by a woman named Ashley Vaughn. She used a fake ID to pick him up from school. We have her location. She’s at the Meadow Ridge Park. I’m on my way there now.”
I rattle off the make and model of my car, my plates, the color hoodie Bash wore when I dropped him off at school this morning. I know what to say.
As soon as I end the call, something shifts inside me. The panic that was clawing at my throat settles into something colder. More focused. I pull out of the school lot and head toward the park. My pulse is a war drum, pounding out every second I’ve lost, every second she’s had him.
I run through everything Hex ever taught me. Every scenario, every control point, every hard-earned lesson he drilled into me at the gun range. How to stay alert. When to speak. When to stay quiet. When to stop waiting for someone else to save you.
This is one of those moments. A situation where the decision is obvious.
But beneath the focus, under the steady breath and the clinical movements, something older and darker pulses through me.
Not panic. Not fear.
Rage.
Cold, righteous rage.
The kind I’ve buried for years under calm smiles and crisis plans. Under the belief that if I just fixed everything fast enough, maybe the world wouldn’t fall apart.
But I’m not fixing anything today.
I’m choosing.
Choosing to be the kind of woman who doesn’t wait for permission to protect what’s hers.
I used to think I had to be good.
But I’m not scared of the dark anymore.
I’m in love with someone who lives in it.
And right now, I don’t want the light.
For once, I’m not scrambling to find the line between right and wrong. I’m standing in the middle of it. Gun in my purse. Steel in my spine.
I don’t care how this ends. I only care that it does.
I want my fucking son back.
I’m preparing to fight tonight. Gloves on, tape tight, and Will and JT trading strategy as if this is any other Friday. I bounce on my toes in the gym, working through the motions while my mind stays split: half on the ring, half on Sable.
Then the phone rang.
Sable.
I don’t need to hear more than three words to grab my shit and haul ass out the doors.
“She took him.”
Ashley fucking Vaughn.
She’s crossed into a place she won’t return from.
