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MIA

This is a nightmare. I pinch myself hard enough to draw blood. This has to be a nightmare.

But I don’t wake up.

Because it’s real.

Brad’s gun is shaking against Eli’s head. His grip isn’t firm, not in the slightest. Somehow, that terrifies me more than anything. “Let him go, Brad.”

“Not a fuckin’ chance.” His face is still bloody from where Desya socked him earlier, his clothes in complete disarray. “He came to me, you know.” His tone takes on a manic edge. “That’s gotta be a sign, right?”

I lock eyes with Eli. He looks more terrified than I’ve ever seen him, and with good reason. “It’s okay, baby,” I lie, because I have to. Because, right now, the truth would only be crueler. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“I’m s-sorry, Mommy,” he sobs. “I-I saw you outside my window, but then you were gone. Then Aunt Nik was coming, so I snuck into her c-car?—”

“Quiet,” Brad interrupts. “The adults are talking now.”

Something sharp hardens in me. Something cold and deadlier than any gun.

A mother’s rage.

“Don’t you dare treat him like that!” I scream. “He’s your son! How could you do this to your own son?!”

“Should you really be making demands of me?” He digs the mouth of his gun harder into Eli’s temple to make a point. “I’ve got the upper hand now, Mia. You know I do.”

“You always make the same mistake, don’t you?”

“What… mistake?”

“Getting attached.”

Our earlier conversation plays back in my mind. It fills me with dread that he’d really do this. Last time he pointed a gun at him, Eli wasn’t awake to remember. And I always thought, deep down, that he’d been bluffing, manipulating me the best way he knew how.

But what if he really means it?

“Okay.” I take a deep breath, make a calming motion with my hands. “Let’s talk, alright? Let’s just talk about this.”

“So you can trick me again?” He scoffs. “No, thanks. I’m taking the little bastard.”

“I’ll come with you,” I say. “Let him go, and I’ll come. Right here, right now.”

“Maybe you didn’t hear me.” His tone twists with fury. “I don’t want you anymore, Euphemia. Better yet, I don’t fucking need you. But you know what I do want?” He smirks, cruel and vicious. “To make the rest of your life hell.”

“Then just take me!” I’m sobbing now, begging harder than I’ve begged before. “Take me, do what you want with me, but just?—”

“No.” He shakes his head. “You don’t care about yourself.

In fact, you don’t give a shit whether you live or die.

Sure, I could carve that other little bastard out of you, but what would be the point?

You didn’t get to know her. You didn’t spend five years caring for her.

And then you’d die, and you wouldn’t even get to fucking miss her. ”

“So that’s what this is about?” I croak. “Making me suffer?”

“Yes!” He yells that word loud enough for half the mobsters here to turn. “Like you made me suffer!”

“You son of a bitch,” Yulian bellows, drawing closer. He must have ended his fight and seen what was happening across the lot. “You heartless fucking?—”

“Not another step.” Brad pokes the gun into Eli’s head again. It makes him yelp in pain. “Or else I’ll change my plans.”

“You do that, you’ll be dead before you?—”

“Stop!” I get between them. Panic is rising inside me, ruling over any rational thought. “Yulian, don’t come any closer. J-Just do as he says. Please.”

He locks eyes with me. He can see the sheer terror in me, the same way I can see how afraid he truly is. There aren’t many things that can scare Yulian Lozhkin, but clearly, the prospect of losing his son is one of them.

His son. I should be correcting myself, but I don’t. Because the truth is, as much as I’ve wanted to salvage something of Brad and Eli’s relationship for Eli’s future?—

As much as I’ve wanted my son to have a father?—

It turns out, he already did. All along for this past year, he’s had the best father in the universe.

And now, they might lose each other because of me.

No. I won’t let that happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not for anything in the world. There’s only one way Bradley Baldwin is walking out of here with our son.

Over my dead fucking body.

“Brad.” I try to make my voice calmer, softer, like I did before. But the truth is, I’m all out of lies. “Look at me. You don’t want to do this.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you love him,” I say. “You do. That’s why you wanted custody in the first place, right? It wasn’t just to hurt me. It was because you missed him.”

“That’s bullshit,” Brad spits.

“Is it?” I take one bold step. Brad’s gun flinches, but he doesn’t move otherwise. “Because I remember how it was. Back at your place, last winter—you were really trying, weren’t you?” Tears well up into my eyes, but I don’t give up. “You wanted to make it work. You just didn’t know how.”

“Shut up.”

“Because your father never showed you.”

“Shut up .”

“Because all he taught you was violence, and when he died, you thought you had to become him to survive.”

“SHUT UP!” His gun starts shaking hard. “One more step, and I swear, I’ll fucking shoot him!”

I swallow a scream. Force myself to keep talking, to keep him sane. As long as I’m talking, Eli will keep breathing.

Unless that gun goes off by accident.

“I know why you’re really doing this.” My voice breaks, but I keep talking. “It’s because you weren’t ready to let go, right?”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I understand.” I force a smile through the tears. “Because I’m not ready to let go, either. I love him too much.” I hook Brad’s gaze. “And so do you.”

I can see it then: a glimpse of hesitation. One last spark of the boy he used to be. Of the man he could have been, had he chosen differently.

But it isn’t too late to choose. For us, yes—but not for this.

“Please, Brad,” I whisper. “Please, let him go. If you ever loved him, let him go.”

Brad’s eyes are lucid. It’s an odd thing—seeing him show emotion. Something other than anger, lust, hatred.

“Dad, please,” Eli sobs quietly. “I don’t want to die.”

It breaks me to hear it. To hear my five-year-old kid beg his biological father to spare his life. It would break anyone with a heart—anyone at all.

Turns out, it breaks Brad, too.

Slowly, he lowers his gun. It’s still shaking, but it’s pointed at the ground now, not Eli.

“Go,” he rasps.

Eli doesn’t need to hear it twice. He runs into my arms. “Mommy!”

I wrap myself around him, squeeze him tight against me. “I’ve got you, baby,” I whimper. “Mommy’s got you.”

We’re both crying, a mess of tears and snot, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters—just this.

I lock eyes with Brad behind Eli’s back. “Thank you,” I mouth.

He nods once.

Then a gunshot rings out.

I see it happen in slow motion. Brad’s shaking fingers, pulling the trigger by mistake. A bullet flying from his gun.

Another bullet, flying towards him .

And then smoke, rising from Yulian’s gun.