My mother screamed again.
Daniel staggered into the workbench, and the gun slid across the floor.
Noah kicked it under the car before I even realized what he was doing.
Rachel grabbed a metal jack handle and swung with every year stolen from her.
The blow cracked against Daniel’s skull.
He dropped.
He tried to rise.
My father, bleeding heavily now, grabbed his collar and rasped, “You don’t get another girl.”
Then he slammed his head into the concrete pillar.
Daniel went still.
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder.
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then my father collapsed.
My mother dropped beside him, pressing shaking hands against the blood spreading through his shirt.
He looked at me, then at Rachel, then at Noah.
There was no plea for forgiveness in his face.
He knew better.
Only ruin.
And truth, finally exposed.
“I told myself,” he whispered, struggling to breathe, “that I was protecting the family. Then I kept protecting myself. That’s how evil works. It asks for one lie first.”
Rachel knelt beside him, tears falling silently.
He looked at her longest.
“I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes.