But Nadiyah isn't looking at me anymore. Not at Avery either. She's looking at her son, and the devastation on her face is something I recognize. She wears the defeated expression ofsomeone staring at the wreckage they've made and knowing they can't take any of it back.
I force my anger down. Lock it behind my teeth. Because letting it loose right now won't help anything. And it won't stop what I can already see building behind Nadiyah's eyes.
"It's over, Nadiyah." My voice is steady. Barely. "You made the right choice. That's what matters."
She chokes on another sob. Her final words are barely audible. "I just want the pain to stop now."
She pivots away from us. Starts moving swiftly toward the ledge. In an instant, she steps up onto the low parapet wall at the roof's edge.
Ah, fuck. She's going to jump. "No—"
Behind me, Sami wails. A single, sharp cry of recognition.
Nadiyah’s mother screams her name.
In a flash of memory, Dubai detonates inside my skull. Omar Al-Hassan on the roof of his hotel. The sickening forward tilt of a man's body choosing gravity over life. The sound I couldn't stop, the fall I couldn't prevent. The death that put every one of us on this rooftop today.
I can't let it happen again. This time, I have to change the ending.
I'm hardly aware of myself moving, running for the ledge. Gravel scatters under my feet. Nadiyah is already turning forward, her weight shifting toward the fall, her arms loose at her sides.
I lunge for her. My right hand shoots out, closing around her wrist. Bone and tendon feel fragile in my grasp, the scars on my arm and hand stretching, burning. All of her weight pulls against the ruined hand that hasn't had full strength since I was eighteen years old.
But I hold fast.
The old fractures, the nerve damage, the tissue that never healed right—all of it blazes white-hot as I clamp down and refuse to let her go. I yank with everything I have, my feet scrambling for purchase on loose gravel.
Nadiyah jerks backward, away from the fall.
We crash onto the rooftop together. My back hits the gravel hard. Sharp stones bite into my back, grinding into my shoulder blade, my hip. Nadiyah lands against me, the impact driving the air from my lungs, her body limp with shock.
Then small footsteps pound across the gravel, and Sami throws himself onto his mother. His arms wrap around her neck, his face buried against her chest, crying violently. "Maman, Maman, Maman—"
Nadiyah's arms come up slowly, as if she's not sure she's allowed to hold him. Then something breaks in her and she's clutching him, pulling him close, her body curling around his small frame. They both weep uncontrollably.
Her mother is there now too. Dropping to her knees, she wraps her arms around both of them, sobbing, praying. Her words are too rushed for me to understand, but the tone is unmistakable. Relief. Pain. Love.
It’s over. Everyone is safe.
"Nick!" Avery stumbles to my side, reaching for me as I push myself up from the rooftop. Every muscle protests. Every muscle screams. My back is scraped raw, my right hand throbbing with a deep, bone-level ache, adrenaline still flooding my system with nowhere left to go. None of it matters.
The only thing I need is Avery. And she's right here with me. Safe. Unharmed.
I pull her close, not the desperate collision from before, but something quieter. Exhausted. So fucking grateful to feel her in my embrace.
Her hand finds mine, threads our fingers together. My other hand settles on her abdomen, gentle, reverent. I have my family. Everything I need is right here, in my arms.
She looks up at me, her eyes red-rimmed, her cheeks still wet with tears. My own face is wet too. I'm not sure either of us are capable of words right now. I caress her face, then bend to kiss her, just to confirm to myself that I'm not dreaming. She's real, and we've survived this. Together.
Commotion draws my attention to the open stairwell door, where the sounds of boots pounding and tactical gear jangling echo out. Gabe and his team pour onto the roof with weapons drawn and voices sharp with urgency.
He takes in the scene in a single sweep. Nadiyah on the ground with her son and mother. The gun lying forgotten on the gravel a few yards away. Avery and me on our feet, holding each other.
He approaches, his expression shifting from combat-ready to something quieter as he reads the situation. "You okay?"
I nod. My voice, when it comes, sounds like it's been dragged over the same gravel I just landed on. "Yeah. We're both all right."
His gaze moves to Avery. She’s pale, spent, running on nothing but adrenaline and whatever reserves she had left to burn. "We should get you checked out. The baby too, just in case. There's an ambulance already waiting down below."
