Page 67 of Silent Night, Savage Heart

Okay, there’s no way I’m letting them burn.

We find the conference room. The door's locked from the outside, and the heat is already making the metal too hot to touch.

"Stand back," I tell Talia. She's still holding my Glock, but I take it, aim at the lock mechanism, and fire three times.

The lock shatters.

The door opens.

Six men pour out, coughing, disoriented but alive.

"Out! Now!” I shout. "Follow her."

Talia leads them toward the exit while I check for more victims. The smoke's thicker now, dropping lower, making it hard to see, harder to breathe.

There’s a sound behind me. Its footsteps. I turn and find Silas standing in the hallway, blocking the exit, gun in hand.

"You couldn't just let them burn, could you?” he says. “Just had to play hero for some ridiculous reason. It couldn’t possibly be for the Quinn girl’s sake?”

“Maybe.” I shrug.

"Then die like a hero.”

He raises the gun. I'm already moving, diving sideways as he fires. The shot goes wide, hits the wall where I was standing.

A series of brief memories flashes in my mind. Silas and my father are taking me on my first hunting trip together. Silas and my father having a whiskey neat after every Christmas dinner. Silas feigns grief at my father’s funeral. The moment I suspect Silas is trafficking women.

I return fire. Two shots. Center mass.

Silas staggers, looks down at the blood spreading across his shirt with something like surprise.

"You shot me," he says, and starts coughing.

“Yeah, I shot you.” I move closer, gun still trained on him.

He's sinking to his knees now, hand pressed to the wound, blood seeping through his fingers.

"The family,” he starts.

"Whatever you think you were building this family into dies with you."

"Luca and Nico, they'll continue.”

"Luca just saved my life, and Nico warned us about your plan. They're done taking your orders." I step past him, toward the exit. "You die alone just like you lived. Tell my father I said hello.”

I leave him there, bleeding out in the burning building, and don't look back. The hallway's an inferno now. Flames on the walls, ceiling collapsing, air so hot it burns to breathe. I find the window, the one leading to the gardens. Three stories up. No time for clever climbing. I break the glass, look down at the drop, and jump.

The landing's brutal. My shoulder is screaming, my ribs are probably cracked again, but I'm alive. And somewhere in the wintery chaos of evacuating guests and emergency vehicles, I’m going to find Peyton and tell her what I should have told her from the beginning.

That I'm sorry.

That I love her.

That I'm done letting fear dictate my choices.

And that I choose her.

Every time.