The moments before Liam arrived stretched into their own kind of forever.
Todd stood ten feet away, the gun steady in his hand, that smile on his face that I remembered from every nightmare I'd ever had. Mia was tied to a tree, duct tape over her mouth, her muffled sobs the only sound besides Todd's voice and my own heartbeat thundering in my ears.
“You don't want to do this.” I kept my voice calm. Level. The voice I used on calls when everything was falling apart and someone had to hold it together. “Think about what happens after, Todd. The cops are coming. You can hear the sirens.”
He laughed. High and cracked, the sound of a man who'd stopped caring about consequences.
“After?” He took a step closer. The gun didn't waver. “There's no after for you, Riley. That's the whole point.”
His plan became clear as he talked. The words spilling out of him like poison, like he'd been rehearsing this speech for years and finally had his audience.
Kill me. Claim self-defense. Say I attacked him, that he was just trying to see his daughter, that I'd always been unstable and violent and he'd had no choice. With me dead and no other guardian, he'd get custody of Mia by default. The Social Security benefits. The control. The twisted satisfaction of winning.
The absurdity of it almost made me laugh. He had an ankle monitor. A restraining order. He'd kidnapped a child from her school in broad daylight. There was no version of this story where he walked away clean, no jury in the world that would believe his self-defense claim. But that was Todd. Always convinced he was smarter than everyone else, always certain he could talk his way out of anything.
He'd gotten away with so much for so long. He thought he'd get away with this too.
The cruelty of it took my breath away.
The logic of it terrified me more.
I didn’t rush him.
“You’ve thought this through.”
“But it won’t work. Too many people know about the custody battle. Too many people know what you are.”
“What I am?” Todd's face twisted. “I'm a man who got screwed over by a junkie and her ungrateful brat of a daughter. I'm a man who's been fighting for two years to get back what's mine. And I'm done fighting fair.”
His finger tightened on the trigger.
I braced, steadying myself for the end.
The certainty settled over me like a weight. Not panic, not anymore. Something quieter. Something that felt almost like peace.
I was going to die in this clearing, with the afternoon light slanting golden through the trees, with my sister watching. I was going to die, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
But I could choose how.
I planted my feet. Held his gaze. Refused to beg, refused to cower, refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me break.
If I were going to die, I’d die standing. I’d die protecting my sister. That was all I’d ever wanted to do.
I lifted my chin, met his eyes, didn’t let him see the fear settle.
“Mia knows what you are.” My voice didn’t shake. “She’ll tell everyone. She’ll never stop telling people what happened here. You’ll never have a moment’s peace.”
“Shut up!”
The gun jerked higher. His knuckle went white on the trigger.
Liam exploded out of the tree line.
The world fractured.
I saw him a split second before Todd did. Emerging from the trees like a force of nature, his face set in something I'd never seen before. Not the easygoing rancher. Not the patient firefighter. Something harder. Something desperate.
His hand closed around Todd's wrist just as the gun fired.
