The shot was deafening in the small bedroom. Victor dropped, clutching his shoulder, the knife clattering across the hardwood. Officers were on him in a heartbeat, kicking the blade away, cuffing him, reading him his rights.
“Clear!” someone shouted. “Subject in custody!”
My ears rang. My breath came in shallow bursts. I was alive.
Then we heard it downstairs. The front door opening.
“Someone just came in,” an officer whispered over the radio.
We all froze. Sarah signaled to two officers; they moved into the hallway, weapons raised.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs, faster and lighter than Victor’s.
Dylan appeared in the bedroom doorway.
He was holding the revolver from the kitchen drawer.
“Police!” Sarah shouted. “Drop the weapon!”
Dylan’s face went sheet-white. He saw Victor bleeding on the floor. Saw the officers. Saw me sitting up in bed, very much alive in a bulletproof vest.
“Dad,” he breathed. “You… you’re supposed to be in Seattle.”
“Drop the gun, Dylan,” Sarah said. “Now.”
“I… I heard shots,” he stammered. “I came to—”
“You came to what?” I asked, my voice steady in a way I barely recognized. “Shoot Victor after he killed me? Make yourself the hero? ‘Find’ the gun you planted and call the police?”
Dylan’s hand trembled. The revolver wavered.
“Your mother hired Victor to kill me,” I said, standing slowly. “But you hired him too, didn’t you? Hired him to kill both of us. Take the insurance money. Frame Sophia for my murder. Walk away clean.”
“No, I… that’s not…” Dylan stammered.
“We have the recordings,” I said. “All of them. Your phone calls. Your bank records. Margaret Sullivan’s will. Jennifer Walsh. Lisa Freeman. We know everything, Dylan.”
The gun lowered slightly.
“Dad, you don’t understand,” he blurted. “She made me. Mom—”
“She taught you,” I said. “You made your own choices.”
Dylan’s eyes darted between the officers, Victor on the floor, and me.
For a second, I saw something break behind his eyes. The mask he’d worn—charming, wounded stepson, struggling student—slipped, and there was something cold and calculating behind it.
He raised the gun.
Sam tackled him from behind.
The gunshot blew a hole in the ceiling. Officers swarmed Dylan, wrenching the revolver from his hand, shoving him face-down on the hardwood, cuffing him as he cursed and shouted.
“Mr. Harrison, are you hit?” Sarah asked, rushing to my side, eyes running over the vest.
“I’m okay,” I said. My legs shook so badly I sat down on the edge of the bed.
Downstairs, we heard another commotion—shouting, the slam of a door, multiple voices.
Sophia’s voice cut through it all.
“What’s happening? Why are there police cars? James?”
She appeared in the doorway, held back by two officers. Her eyes went wide when she saw Victor bleeding, Dylan in handcuffs, and me standing there in a vest.
“James,” she gasped. “Oh my God. Are you—what happened? I don’t understand.”
“Stop,” I said quietly. “Just stop.”
Our eyes met.
For three years I’d looked at this woman and seen my second chance at happiness. Now I saw what Will had seen from the beginning.
A predator. Patient. Methodical. Lethal.
“We have everything, Sophia,” I said. “Audio of you hiring Victor. Bank records showing your offshore accounts. The life insurance fraud. The digoxin in the vitamins.”
I took a step closer.
“And we have Dylan’s plan,” I said. “He was going to kill both of us tonight. Frame you for my murder. Did you know that?”
Sophia’s gaze snapped to Dylan. He stared at the floor, refusing to look at her.
“Dylan?” she whispered. “What is he talking about?”
“He has his own victims,” I said. “Margaret Sullivan. Jennifer Walsh. Lisa Freeman. He copied you. Your own son was going to betray you.”
Something flickered across Sophia’s face—shock, realization, and then cold, focused rage.
“You little traitor,” she hissed at Dylan. “I taught you everything, and you were going to—”
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