Shot him on sight. Instant threat elimination without hesitation.
That was the easy tactical decision. The clean operational choice.
Center mass. Target down. Situation resolved in under two seconds.
But Sabine had been sitting right there on the floor.
I didn't want her to watch a man die violently in front of her young eyes. Didn't want a five-year-old child's developing brain forming permanent traumatic memories of that specific kind of violence.
God forbid she actually got physically splattered with blood and brain matter and bone fragments when the round exited.
So, I'd hesitated deliberately. Waited for a better opening. Tried to find another solution that didn't involve killing someone in front of a kindergartener.
And now Randy had Sabine gripped tightly in his grasp with a loaded gun pressed directly to her fragile head.
Consequences of mercy.
It was still technically an easy shot from my current position.
So easy. So close. Maybe eight feet maximum.
Literal child's play for someone with my training and extensive experience.
Except there was literally a child directly involved whose life depended on absolutely perfect execution.
And that innocent child currently had a weapon pressed against her temple by a very sick man whose hand was shaking with rage and grief and complete mental breakdown.
All this might not have been Randy's fault originally—Rose's elaborate lies, the secret double life, the betrayal that had clearly shattered him.
But what was happening right now, in this moment, was absolutely, unquestionably his fault.
His choice. His violence. His responsibility.
And right now was all that actually mattered anymore.
The world got very small for me in moments like this, the way it always did.
Tunnel vision setting in hard and automatic, trained response.
I could still hear voices around me—Randy demanding answers in that tight, breaking voice, Ella trying desperately to placate him and buy precious time—but they sounded increasingly distant and muffled.
Like I was underwater and they were calling from the surface.
My entire focus narrowed down to a single critical point.
The gun trembling in Randy's hand.
I watched his fingers with absolute, unwavering concentration. Flexing against the grip when emotion spiked. Then relaxing slightly, pressure releasing, as he focused on talking instead. Then tightening again dangerously when something Ella said triggered fresh rage.
Reading the micro-movements. The unconscious tells. The patterns.
I had to time this absolutely perfectly. Precisely. No margin for error.
One wrong move, one tiny miscalculation, and that trigger would pull reflexively.
And Sabine would die instantly.
Randy said something loud and sharp and enraged about something Ella had said or carefully not said.
