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“No,” I said as I looked into her eyes.

“Yes, he did. He⁠—”

“No.”

I didn’t care what happened in that parking lot. I didn’t care that they were only there to see Tahari’s place. I didn’t care who those bullets were meant for. I knew my husband. If Malik had believed for one second that his daughter was in danger, there wasn’t a force on this earth that could have stopped him from getting between her and it.

“You listen to me,” I said as I wiped the tears from her face. “Your father made a choice.”

“But—”

“He made a choice, Maliah.”

She stared at me.

“That man has spent your whole life protecting you. You think today was supposed to be different?”

Another tear slipped down her cheek.

“He put his body over mine.”

I closed my eyes. I didn’t need that image. I already had enough horrible ones in my head that I hadn’t even witnessed.

“He tossed his body over me, and then I heard the shots. When I looked at him…” Her voice cracked. “It was blood everywhere.”

“Maliah.”

“I thought he was dead, Mama.”

She broke down. The visual she was giving was killing me. Still, I had to remember that although Malik was my husband, she was my baby. She had witnessed something so tragic happen to her father.

This time, I pulled her against me and let her cry. My own tears started again, but I fought to keep myself from completely falling apart. My daughter had watched her father get shot. Whatever I was feeling was nothing compared to the weight she was feeling.

“But he’s not dead,” I whispered against her hair. “You hear me?”

She nodded.

“Your daddy is still here.”

“He saved me.” She took a long pause. “He could’ve died.”

“But he didn’t.”

I pulled back and made her look at me.

“He didn’t,” I said as I looked deep into her brown orbs.

I needed her to believe it just as much as I needed to believe it myself.

Whatever came next, we would figure it out. Now that I had wrapped my mind around him being alive and having to learn to possibly walk again, I had to gain some kind of strength that I knew he would need. A wheelchair didn’t scare me. Physical therapy didn’t scare me. Months of rehabilitation didn’t scare me. Malik being angry, frustrated, stubborn, and probably getting on every damn nerve I had because he hated needing help didn’t scare me either. The only thing that scared me was losing him. And I hadn’t. Not today anyway. A nurse stepped through the double doors.

“Mrs. Browne?”

My head snapped in her direction.

“Yes?”

“Your husband has been moved to recovery.”