"I'm looking for my girlfriend. Sadie Chen. I know she's here." He hasn't drawn his weapon yet. Smart enough to recognize he's outmatched, not smart enough to retreat. "She'sconfused. She doesn't know what she wants. I just need to talk to her."
"She's not your girlfriend. She's not confused. And you're not talking to her."
"You don't understand." He takes a step forward, and I raise the rifle slightly. He freezes. "Sadie and I have something special. We're meant to be together. She just got scared, that's all. I can fix it if she'll just listen to me."
Three months of stalking. Forty-seven phone calls in one night. A fake engagement designed to provoke a reaction. And he stands there telling me she's confused.
"Here's what's going to happen." I keep my voice flat, emotionless. "You're going to take the gun out of your jacket, slowly, using two fingers. You're going to set it on the ground. Then you're going to lie face down in the snow with your hands behind your head."
"Or what? You'll shoot me?" He laughs, a brittle sound. "You won't. I haven't done anything. Coming to check on my girlfriend isn't a crime."
"Breaking and entering at her San Diego apartment. Harassment via electronic communication. Stalking across state lines. Carrying a concealed weapon without a permit in Nevada." I recite the charges Mace compiled, watching his face pale with each one. "That's before we get into the three women who filed complaints against you before Sadie. The settlements. The NDAs." I pause. "How do you think your new fiancée will feel when all of that becomes public?"
His expression shifts. The charm falls away, revealing something uglier underneath. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I know everything. Bank records, phone logs, IP traces. You've been sloppy, Derek. Left a trail a mile wide." I take a stepcloser. "The only question now is whether you walk out of here in handcuffs or on a stretcher."
"She belongs to me." The mask is fully off now. His hand moves toward his jacket again. "I'm not leaving without her."
"She doesn't belong to anyone. Especially not you."
"Fuck you."
He draws.
I'm faster.
The rifle comes up and I fire, not at center mass but at his hand. The bullet tears through his wrist and the gun goes flying, a spray of red against the white snow. He screams, clutching his arm, collapsing to his knees.
"I warned you." I close the distance between us, kicking his dropped weapon away. "Lie down. Hands behind your head. Don't make me tell you again."
He's sobbing now, cradling his wrist, blood seeping through his fingers. "You shot me. You fucking shot me."
"Consider it a love tap." I key the radio. "Target neutralized. Requesting medical and transport."
"Copy that. En route."
I stand over Derek Whitmore, watching him bleed into the snow, and feel nothing but cold satisfaction. He came here to hurt Sadie. To take her, control her, destroy her if he couldn't have her. And now he's crying in the dirt, his expensive jacket ruined, his fantasy of possession shattered.
The cabin door opens behind me.
"Wolfe?"
I turn. Sadie is standing on the porch, wrapped in a blanket, her face pale but her eyes fierce. I told her to stay inside. Of course she didn't listen.
"It's over." I keep my rifle trained on Derek. "He's not going to hurt you."
She walks toward us, bare feet leaving prints in the snow. I want to tell her to go back, to stay warm, to let me handle this. But she has a right to face him. A right to look the monster in the eye and see how small he really is.
"Sadie." Derek's voice is a whine now. "Baby, please. This is all a misunderstanding. I love you. I've always loved you."
She stops a few feet away, looking down at him. The man who made her feel small. Who convinced her she was too much. Who followed her across state lines because he couldn't accept that she didn't want him anymore.
"You don't love me." Her voice is steady. "You never did. You loved controlling me. You loved making me afraid. That's not love, Derek. That's sickness."
"No, baby, listen?—"
"Don't call me that." Steel in her tone. "Don't ever call me anything again. We're done. We've been done for three months, and the only reason you can't accept that is because you're so used to getting what you want that you can't handle being told no."
