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Lowering his brow, he asked, “Don’t you mean our son?”

“Don’t get lost in semantics. Listen to what I’m saying. He has to be my first concern, and right now, that looks like getting the hell out of town and starting somewhere else.” With a shuddering breath, I added, “And I’ll take Mom with me, too, since who the hell knows what might happen to her now.”

The bastard had the audacity to scoff. “You’re upset.”

“No kidding, I’m upset. I watched a man bleed out earlier. These hands…” I whimpered, holding them up. The sight of them popped my anger like a balloon, allowing the fear and sadness to flow through me. “I used them to try to keep his blood inside his body. And if it hadn’t been for him, I would’ve been the one on the ground. I would be the one in surgery now. And why?”

“Running is not the answer.”

“You don’t get to tell me what the answer is when you’re the problem.”

His eyelids fluttered. “You don’t mean that.”

“Believe me, I do. I have to think as a mother, which means putting Liam first.”

Searching my face for understanding, he demanded, “I don’t get a say in any of this?”

“You can say whatever you want to, but it’s not going to change my mind. And if you care about him, if you really do, you’ll see I’m right. I got lucky tonight.” At the moment, I didn’t feel so lucky since every minute that passed after the adrenaline stopped flooding my system was a little more painful than the minute before. “How long will my luck hold out? I cannot afford to take that chance. Honestly, I don’t even feel comfortable having you in here right now. What if someone is watching the house, waiting for you to leave?”

He ran a hand over the back of his neck, muttering darkly before sighing. “I am going to get to the bottom of this, but I need you to trust me.”

“It’s not you I don’t trust. It’s everyone around you. I give up.” I sighed, throwing my hands into the air. Even that slight motion made my shoulders scream in protest. “She wins. Diana wins. She can have you all to herself again because if I have to choose between you and Liam, Liam wins every time. Mom too,” I added when his face fell. The sight only hardened my resolve. “I’m sorry, but this is what I have to do for them. If I hadn’t stopped thinking about them in the first place, we wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

“So that’s it? You walk away, and I don’t get any say? You think you’re going to take my son away?” he demanded, tightening his jaw. His face was starting to turn an interesting shade of red, too, not that it did anything to change my mind.

“He doesn’t belong to you like a possession,” I reminded him.

“I know that,” he spat.

“It doesn’t sound that way,” I spat back. “As a parent, your priority has to be Liam’s safety.”

“Which I’m working to ensure.”

“Oh, this is an example of you working to ensure it?” The sarcasm was dripping off me.

Peeling off his jacket, I thrust it his way, even though it meant standing around in nothing but my bra and leggings. “I can’t afford to take chances. Next time, he could be the one in the line of fire.”

“Where are you going to go?”

“I’m not sure.” Wrapping my arms around myself did nothing to ease my sudden shivering. “It’s not like I’ve given this much thought.”

“That’s the problem. You’re not thinking.” He reached out, touching a hand to my cheek, his eyes flying open wide when I swatted it away. “Are you seriously doing this? You won’t listen to reason?”

“I’m seriously doing this.” I was also seriously panicking. The gunshots were so clear in my head, slicing the air the way one of the bullets had sliced through Luke. So close. I could be dead if he hadn’t been there to protect me.

At a moment like this, trembling in the aftermath of a close call, it was easy to pin my anguish on a scapegoat. So what if my heart was breaking? I was the one who’d broken it, walking into what I had always known would be a mistake with Jackson.

This was never going to work.

Diana was always going to win.

“I need you to go,” I told him. “I can’t let Liam be part of your life if this is what your life looks like. And…” It was too much. I couldn’t do it.

“And what?” he demanded, his gaze hard and glittering.

I should have thanked him, but the look he wore solidified my resolve. “And I don’t want to be part of it, either.”

He rocked back on his heels. “You don’t mean it.”