Sheriff Sutherland took another slow step forward. “Kenny, listen to me. You need to put the gun down. This doesn’t end well for you if you don’t.”
For a second, it looked like Kenny might.
His shoulders shifted. His stance wavered.
Then something hardened again.
His eyes flicked between them, wild now, uncertain and furious all at once. “No.”
Instead of lowering the weapon, he raised it higher.
Everything seemed to slow.
Max tensed, every instinct firing at once.
Sheriff Sutherland gripped his gun.
Then a shot rang out.
The sound shattered the night, echoing through the trees.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
For a single, breathless moment, Max didn’t know who had fired.
Hadley kept her voice low and steady even as her heart pounded. “Kendra . . . you don’t have to do this. Whatever you think this will fix—it won’t. But you can still stop and make things right.”
Kendra didn’t respond. Instead, she stood near the window. Her attention seemed focused on something outside, almost as if she were listening for something.
Max?
That had to be it. Kendra thought Max would come here. That she could change his mind about her once he arrived.
Hadley’s pulse ticked higher as she continued. “Max isn’t going to see this the way you think he will. This won’t bring him back to you. It’ll only push him further away.”
Kendra’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t respond.
Then a sharp crack split the air from somewhere in the distance.
Gunfire.
Hadley flinched, her breath catching as the sound echoed through the house. It was distant but not far enough.
Panic flashed across Kendra’s face for the first time. “No. No, no?—”
She yanked the curtain aside and peered into the darkness, her entire focus locked outside.
Hadley’s pulse roared in her ears.
Max.
The thought came fast and fierce.
He’d found her. Or he was close.
Or he’d been hurt . . .
