I didn’t bother concealing my arrival. I reckoned I was expected anyway. My tires screeched to a halt in the driveway and I dove out of the car. I ran to the house and crashed inside.

What I found was right out of my nightmares—my family tied up and Michael’s gun aimed at Riley and our baby.

The cold grip of panic gripped at my belly, but my rage, and the urge to protect my omega and our child, was far more powerful. “If you pull that trigger,” I said, my alpha voice commanding, low and intense, “You’ll be dead before the bullet leaves the gun.”

Michael chuckled. “Let’s test that theory.”

He squeezed the trigger, dancing on the edge of firing the gun. I knew I couldn’t stop him in time. I had to try to bargain with the son of a bitch. Talk to him. Try to reason with him.

“What do you want?” I asked. “I can get you money. I won’t go to the police. Anything you want.”

Michael sneered and shook his head. “You can have me,” Riley said.

I looked at him in shock, devastated, my heart breaking. Riley was mine. Michael couldn’t have him, no matter what Riley said, but I hated that Riley had even offered.

No, no, no no. I would never let Michael touch my omega. The very thought of it made me sick to my stomach.

I looked into Riley’s eyes, searching them for the truth, desperate for that not to be it, and I could see it—that all he could think about was saving our baby. No matter what it took.

I didn’t say anything, but inside my wolf instincts were growling. That would never happen. I could never allow it. I would tear Michael apart first, limb from limb.

But if we could make Michael think it, maybe we’d be able to buy just enough time…

Michael laughed, utterly deranged, and shook his head. “I know I’ve lost Riley. We can never be mated like we should be, now. But love is a powerful thing … I can’t leave you without giving you something to remember me by.”

God, there was no reasoning with him. He was out of his mind. He tightened his aim on Riley’s stomach, and from the back of his pants he pulled a second gun. He pointed it at Richard’s head.

“It’s time to choose,” he told me.

I heard my family gasp, and then a deathly silence.

There was ringing in my ears as my mind washed blank with blind panic. The man who raised me, who loved me—or my own child. What kind of fucking choice was that?

An obvious one. But I couldn’t get the words out. I couldn’t say it. Everyone was looking at me with complete horror on their faces, waiting for me to do something, and I couldn’t pull the words through his throat.

Richard murmured to me, “It’s okay. I’ve had a good life, son. You’ll be alright.”

Still, I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t. My whole life, with Richard by my side, flashed through my mind.

I remembered childhood Christmases, cozied up on Richard’s bed, opening special presents. I remembered Richard’s warm, strong arms around me, after my mom’s funeral, when my dad walked away without a word, without even a concerned glance. I remembered long months in London, alone and so lonely, and only Richard’s voice on the other end of the phone, keeping me going.

How Richard used his vacation time to visit me in London, when my own father wouldn’t even answer a call. The times Richard had looked after me when I was sick, or that one time he bailed me out of a police cell after the first time I got wasted as a teenager.

I remembered Richard’s kind eyes and warm voice and his presence, always there, always watching me, keeping me safe. I remembered so much of this man, and I didn’t want to remember killing him, snuffing out his life like it meant nothing.

But the alternative was ending the existence of my own child. It was an option I couldn’t even fathom. It was no choice at all.

“Tick tock…” Michael purred sadistically.

I had to speak; I had to get the gun turned away from Riley. But as I opened my mouth, it was my father who spoke.

“Kill me.”

Everyone in the room turned to look at him. I stared, utterly shocked. He held his gaze steady on Michael. “You want to give my son something to remember you by? Kill me.”

It was a sacrifice I would never in a million years have expected my father to make, and my heart leapt into my throat. All those years I’d spent hating him, secretly thinking I wished him dead … but faced with the prospect of losing him, I knew it would kill me.

For the twelve years before my mother’s death, my dad had been a dad; too busy, sure, but he had shown me love, and when he spoke those words, I remembered it. I remembered that everything had changed when my mother was gone; he had changed, broken into a million pieces, and he wasn’t strong enough to put himself back together and raise me at the same time.

She’d been his mate, after all, his omega. So he’d sent me off. I could hate him for that forever, but it wouldn’t change that I loved him. He was still my father, my family, my blood. My alpha.

“Dad,” I protested breathlessly.

“David, no, no, please, don’t do this,” Gloria begged him, and I knew she was realizing the true depths of her feelings for my father, too. But Dad kept talking, pulling Michael’s attention onto himself.

“Come on. You can kill an old man, can’t you? Think of the news splash. David Cartwright, murdered in family home. You’d be famous.”

Michael actually looked like he was considering it. He rubbed at his chin, and then shrugged as he came to a decision.

“Your precious son doesn’t care if you live or die. But, sure—if you want to go first—”

He turned his gun on my dad. Gloria screamed. Michael squeezed the trigger.