Six rifles. Open ground. The Suburban would last maybe one exchange before it became a different kind of problem.
“Libby.” I kept my voice low and even, leaving no room for anything but compliance. “Get the girls down. All the way down.”
She didn’t argue, hesitate, or ask what I was planning. She just turned to the backseat and said, “Down, now,” in a voice that borrowed from the same register I’d just used. I heard both of them drop immediately.
I pushed the door open and stepped out onto the running board, keeping the door between myself and the forward group.
Three forward, three back. My eyes dropped to the river through the grating—dark water moving fast twenty feet below. My hand was still on the door. I measured the distance to the nearest rifle, gauged the space between us, then glanced back at the river.
Nobody moved. Nobody rushed. Nobody shouted.
That told me the most. Desperate people moved fast and loudly. These people stood at their spacing, weapons up, breathing controlled, waiting with the patience of those who had done this before and already knew how it ended.
One of them shifted forward a half step, the movement small, deliberate, and somehow more threatening than rushing would have been.
I raised my voice to carry across the distance without shouting. “What do you want?”
Wind moved across the river below. The Suburban’s engine idled behind me, patient and steady.
“Step out of the vehicle.” The voice came back calm and unhurried, the tone of someone issuing an instruction they fully expected to be complied with and weren’t particularly bothered either way.
“Not happening,” I said, the words flat and immediate, because hesitation would have told them something I didn’t want them to know.
A pause. Not a surprised pause—a patient one, the pause of someone who had anticipated this answer and was simply moving to the next step in a sequence they’d already mapped out.
The figure tilted his head slightly, the motion almost conversational.
“Then we do this the hard way.”
“Stay down,” I said quietly, just loud enough to carry through the open door. “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”
Then I faced forward and worked the problem.
“Finn—”
I cut her off. There wasn’t time for the sentence, and there wasn’t time for whatever came after it.
The decision was made. It was the only option that didn’t end with all four of us on our knees on a bridge while six armed men decided our fate.
I slid back into the driver’s seat in a single motion, pulled the door shut, locked it, and kept my eyes forward.
“Down,” I commanded, sharp and absolute. “All of you. Now.”
Libby hadn’t moved. Her eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that, under any other circumstance, I’d have had more time to appreciate.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Getting us through this,” I replied, my hands finding the wheel, my eyes measuring the gap ahead. “It’s the best option I’ve got. It’s the one we’re taking.”
“Finn—”
“Libby.” My voice dropped to something harder, leaving no room for negotiation, questions, or anything but immediate compliance. “Footwell. Right now.”
Whatever she saw in my face settled the argument faster than words could. She held my gaze for another second—reading me, making sure—then nodded once and dropped, pulling herself down into the passenger footwell and curling tight against the dash.
“Fiona, Lily—floor!” I hissed without turning my head.
“Already there,” Fiona confirmed.
