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They were going to be looking for him. The police. Timothy wasn’t stupid. Heather had seen him. She would be able to identify him. And his son. They would identify Timothy and then look at Trey .

It was almost over now.

Trey couldn’t fix this. And Timothy didn’t know how to fix it for his son. He was terrified what would happen now, for his daughters. For Trey.

For himself. Timothy couldn’t go to prison. He just couldn’t. He would never survive there. And his family, his kids— what would happen to them, to Leena?

He and Trey were both on a path to prison now. The only thing they could truly do was run. Get out of town, out of the country. Before they got caught and lost everything.

Damn that girl. Heather had always been nothing but trouble. Always so superior to everyone else. Acting as if she was something special from the time she was only a child. Heather had been an infant when he had first met her. Just a beautiful baby, she and Joy both. But Heather had grown into an attitude that had always gotten right beneath Timothy’s skin by the time she was eleven or twelve.

She wasn’t like Angela. Angela had been quiet, reserved, but so smart. So natural as a physician, as a wife, as a mother. Giving, loving, kind.

It was Heather who had young children now.

Angela’s nieces.

Two of them. Girls, the internet had said. She was a year older than Angela had been at her death now too. It wasn’t right that Angela was gone, but Heather…

Heather had a future Angela would never have. He wondered about Heather’s daughters. What they looked like. He had heard one was an infant. Another a preschooler. Did either look like Angela?

They were his Angela’s nieces. That gave him pause for a moment. Angela had loved little Cashlyn and sweet Cara so much. As much as she’d loved her own daughters. She’d have loved Heather’s children too.

She would have loved them so much. Adored them as much as she had her sisters. She would have been a part of their lives.

Timothy would have been too. Then.

They were his nieces, too, weren’t they? His family.

That had sunken in when he’d seen the reports on the news. After Heather and that realtor had escaped.

Heather was a single mother. She’d had Steve Wilson’s daughters.

He knew what they were saying Steve had done to her too. He believed it of that sick bastard. It disgusted him to think of Angela’s sister going through that kind of hell.

He would not have ever wanted Heather hurt that way. He had never really wanted Angela’s sister hurt at all.

But he had hurt her. He had. And it made him feel utterly sick when he remembered what he had done to her again.

He had never forgotten her eyes the day they’d buried her sister.

He had looked into Heather’s eyes in that warehouse—and for a moment, he had remembered her sister.

And how much he had loved her.

Heather had grown up. She resembled Angela so much now. A great deal. More than she ever had as a girl. And that had hurt him so deeply.

Maybe that was what had had Timothy striking Heather as hard as he had. He’d not been striking Heather, per se; he had been lashing out at the memories. The loss.

He hadn’t meant to hit her that hard, not with that much force. He hadn’t been able to get the sight of her falling because of him out of his head. The sound she’d made when she’d struck the wall echoed in his head. He had hurt her.

For all her bad attitude, Heather was a thinner woman. Tall, but thin. Just like Angela had been. With that same delicate bone structure. With the perfect faces, the perfect, softest skin. Perfect eyes that saw straight to a man’s soul.

Saw a man’s every sin.

He was not the kind of man who struck a woman. He just wasn’t. He had never forgotten what it had felt like the few times he had before.

He had never struck his Angela, and he had never struck his daughters. Until the day he’d buried Angela.

When he had struck two of her sisters and his own little girl. He had just been hurting so much, lashing out. He wasn’t proud of it, but he understood why he had done it. Had come to terms with it, somewhat.

He had always wished he had a way to make it up to Samia somehow. But he hadn’t. Not yet. Sometimes, he dreamed about her looking at him like she had that day. He would never forget the fear, hurt, and betrayal on his baby’s face. As she asked him why he had hit her. Hurt her.

Heather was Angela’s sister. Family, for all that she still pissed him off so deeply. He should not have struck her like that.

He should have protected her. From Trey and his disgusting friends. He should have taken her out of that warehouse himself. Sent her home to her daughters. He knew what he should have done. And he hadn’t done it.

Heather was Angela’s sister. Angela had adored her. Loved her. Would have done anything to protect her.

Angela would hate Timothy for what he had let happen to her sister.

He had to think.

What was he supposed to do about Heather now ?

Something had happened in that warehouse that he didn’t know about.

Timothy was going to find out what it was. He had told Trey to let the two women go. That hurting them was a mistake. But his son was getting arrogant and refusing to listen.

Timothy was going to have to make him understand.

Before it was too late for them all.