I promised myself I wouldn’t let this mess break me, but I’m not so sure that’s a promise I can keep.

Not when I’m sitting on the couch numbly with Em limp and quiet against my side, watching my father scuttle out of the house like a frightened turtle without even a glance back to say goodbye.

I thought I knew what betrayal felt like.

After the number of times Milah stole from me to feed her habit.

After the number of times she said I swear I’m done this time only to show up on the front pages of the tabloids the next morning, coked up and half-naked.

After the many times my father dismissed me as if I was nothing.

After...after I realized he was manipulating me, realized he was just using me to soothe his own ego and somehow couldn’t even hold his fragile self-image together without me around to be his dutiful, pretty little prop.

After realizing my father screwed everyone so bad ordering that hit on the Pilgrims.

But it’s nothing compared to the betrayal of realizing that my father is the one who put me in this situation, that it goes so much deeper than an attempt to protect Milah gone wrong, that he left me and Milah to be hurt. And rather than doing the right thing, all he’s cared about is covering his own ass so he doesn’t look bad in the Monday headlines.

My own father. My own father.

How can he even claim to love me, to love Milah, but then do these things?

What pulls me out of myself isn’t my own willpower. It’s Em, who’s finally coming out of her daze with a soft whimper, her face crumpling. She’s been put through too much today, and even if she’s a smart, wonderful little girl, she’s still a little girl.

If I’m overwhelmed, I can only imagine how she must be feeling.

“Em?” I coax, offering my open arms. She immediately dives in, wrapping her arms around my waist so hard she nearly chokes the air from me.

“Liv, I’m scared,” she whimpers.

I hug her tight. “Baby, it’s okay. You don’t have to be scared.” I rub her back. “Your dad was just a little angry.”

“I’m not scared of Daddy,” she whispers with utter faith. “Daddy’s a hero. Sometimes heroes have to hurt the bad guys.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” I wish the world was that black and white. That simple. I smile faintly. “Your dad is so lucky to have you. Then why were you scared?”

She peers up at me. “I thought my dad was going to kill your dad, and I was scared you’d be sad.”

Oh.

What scares me the most?

It's the fact that right now, I don’t know how I’d feel if Riker hurt my father.

That shakes me even deeper, but I can’t let it show. So I just kiss the top of Em’s head, and lean into her, offering every support I can.

“Yeah,” I say numbly. “Me too.”

Eventually, Em dozes off. I guess today took a lot out of her, and I ease her to rest on the couch with one of the throw pillows under her head, then drape the crocheted quilt over her before slipping out to look for Riker.

We need to talk about what I overheard, and then plan our next move.

I thought I’d have to look for him, but turns out, he’s right outside.

The sun’s setting, the light slanting blue and twilight purple, falling over his motionless form in the garden. He’s sitting at the patio table, elbows resting on his spread knees, clasped fists pressed to his mouth, staring at nothing.

God, he's gorgeous. This huge, somber bear perched in all his imposing splendor.

The events of the past few hours must have taken their toll.

I hadn’t realized just how open and expressive his face had become when we were together until I see him like this, completely closed off behind the same impenetrable wall that masked him when we first met.

Somehow, that frightens me more than everything else.

I drift closer, starting to reach toward him, then drawing back, curling my hand against my chest. “Hey?”

He doesn’t look at me. But that doesn’t mean he’s not aware, when he goes hard as stone in an instant from head to toe. There’s nothing of Riker in this statue in front of me. Especially in the clipped, cold voice that says, “Pack your things. I’ve already called Landon. Skylar and Gabe are on their way.”

My stomach sinks like a bag of rocks. “Your crew? Why?”

“Because you’re being escorted to a new safe house. I can’t protect you anymore. The Pilgrims know who I am. Your old man knows how to track me. It’s time you wind up in someone else’s custody.”

“What? Someone else’s custody?” I stare at him, but he’s still just this motionless block with his gaze trained somewhere distant.

I thrust myself into his line of sight, anything to get him to look at me. To see me the way he did before. This can't just be about the argument with my Dad. There's something else. Something darker.

“Riker, this isn’t just custody, obviously. I mean, we’re in this together, I thought...”

“Doesn’t matter what you thought, Liv. What matters is keeping you alive. Anything else is second to that.” Finally, he looks at me – and I really wish he hadn’t. It’s like being stabbed in the chest by icicles, the blank way he stares through me, the affection in his eyes frosted over. “They’ll be here by morning. Get moving. Don't argue.”

“So this is it? Just like that?” I can’t believe it.

I’m so thrown, I can’t even find it in me to argue, to process this, to defy him.

I'm just standing still. Frozen. Stunned.

This is the second time today a man I loved tossed me aside like trash, and I can’t freaking stand it anymore.

I don’t know when I start crying. I just know that suddenly the world is wet trembling crystalline prisms and Riker’s just a mess of dark color so I can’t see that awful empty way he’s looking at me. “Talk to me...please. We can make this work. I want to stay with you. I only feel safe with you.”

“Just because you feel safe with me doesn’t mean you are.” Grim resignation. There’s a hint of emotion there, lost and heavy, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough to ease this ripping, terrible feeling inside. “You have to go, Liv. Someday, you'll understand.”

“Understand what? This crappy goodbye, all of a sudden? That it's done, just like that?” It comes out wavering, choked. “That you never cared at all?”

There's a brutal pause. Then he looks at me, and my whole world goes hot and sad and white.

“If I didn’t care,” he says softly, “I wouldn’t be doing this.”

But he is, and I can't hear it anymore. I can’t hear him telling me he’s breaking my heart and shutting me out for my own good.

It’s like being thrown from summer into the bitterest winter. I’m freezing inside-out.

I turn, run from him, into the house, stumbling blindly through my tears, through the shattered feeling in my chest. Then I'm brushing past Em, past this amazing girl I’ve come to love like family, past the illusion that I could ever be a part of their family.

I should have known all along it was just pretend.

I just never knew reality could hurt so bad.

They let me have the bedroom to myself tonight. Riker sleeps on the floor while Em takes the couch. One of them, probably Em, leaves a forlorn wrapped sandwich on a plate outside my door. I ignore it.

I just shove my things into my bag, then curl up in bed and sob myself to sleep, trying so hard to empty this feeling out of me so I can leave it behind in this cabin and forget it once I walk away.

It’s not until days later that I realize my notebook is gone.

Ugh. I must have left it at the cabin with Riker and Em, when Gabe and Skylar showed up to shuffle me off with my head down so I wouldn’t have to see Em’s miserable look or the fact that Riker wasn’t there at all.

But I almost burst out crying again when Em glued herself to my back with a whispered, tearful goodbye before running away without giving me a chance to respond. For days, Sky and Gabe have been all gentle voices and careful space and sympathetic looks.

All while I pretend to appreciate the tactful handling. Honestly, I can’t stand being around them when that connection vibrates between them. Their love is so tangible, so full of everything I thought I’d had with Riker and somehow lost in the blink of an eye.

So I stay in my room in this weird little two-bedroom shack off in the woods on the Oregon coast, watching the day turn into night.

There’s sleeping. A lot of depressed, heavy sleeping.

I’ve gone full Ophelia, and getting out of bed to take care of myself is my most impressive feat of the day. But I’d been thinking about throwing all of this into my book, killing off the hero after last one valiant struggle to wake from his coma, his last words a tearful promise of forever love before he’s gone, and the strong heroine has to stand alone. Fend for herself. Survive.

Except now my book is gone, too, and I...God.

I can’t stand the idea of going back to get it, let alone asking. Not when Riker would look right through me, and Em might be upset for betraying my promise to always be her friend, even if it isn't really my fault.

How can I be her friend, her anything, when her father shut me out of their life like nothing?

I’ll just have to start over, I tell myself. With everything.

With my life, looking for my independence on my own.

With my book, with a new draft.

Maybe one of the last things I’ll buy with Daddy’s credit card is a laptop, so I can save my novel in a better medium plus start looking for jobs. I’ll find somewhere to work, somewhere that can teach me better skills than I learned with a liberal arts degree that focused mostly on the type of secretarial work my dad expected. Maybe I’ll have to start off in like a women’s shelter or something like that, but sooner or later I’ll have a place of my own.

And I’ll be okay without Daddy. Even without Riker.

Though my heart’s telling me otherwise, right now.

My heart’s telling me I’ll never be okay again because I’ll never know what could have been.

Before I enact this grand plan, though, I’ve got to enact my grand escape. There’s one more thing I need to do with Daddy’s money before I take the scissors to his AmEx.

I’m going to fix this. So that no one has to worry about the Pilgrims ever again.

I can’t just sit here and mope until I waste away, waiting for someone else to wrap this up.

Not after Milah called this morning, shaking and afraid because she saw two black cars parked down the street from her house, and not even a double patrol by her security team scared them into driving away and settling elsewhere.

She’s terrified. She wants to come see me, but she’s scared to leave her house, scared to lead them to me, constantly pushing Daddy to turn himself in and falling back when he won’t listen.

This has gone on too long, and I’m tired of being helpless.

If the Pilgrims want blood money, I’ll pay them off out of Daddy’s own pocketbook. However much they want.

Daddy might argue with them, maybe, but I won’t.

By the time it’s done, it’ll be too late. He won’t be able to stop me, the money will be in their hands, and this can all be settled. I have my trust fund, too, and the private account Daddy set up with a stipend for me. I couldn’t access them before in case they might be tracked.

But it doesn’t matter if I’m giving the money to the people tracking me, right?

I linger on my small notepad, the only thing I salvaged with a few stray story notes, and that list I’d been keeping.

Seven hundred sixteen dollars and eighty-two cents. That's the final tally I have written down.

It’s weird to think that’s how much my life with Riker cost him, down to the smallest latte or pack of gum. That’s what my existence is worth, in the space of a few weeks.

That’s how much I’ll leave in my accounts. One way or another, I’ll get it to him, and turn the rest over to the Pilgrims to end this. A bribe of that magnitude, seven figures...

It has to be worth more to them than revenge.

They're monsters, but they're business people. It wouldn't be rational to stay angry if I give them far more than they'd have ever made off those drug pushers.

By the time my resolve hardens, I’ve already worked out a game plan.

After dinner, Skylar and Gabe always go sit on the back porch and watch the sunset and talk about fishing and some old stories from New Orleans when he was a boy. While they’re not looking, it’s easy to slip away.

Out the front door, into the woods, a backpack with a change of clothes and a few personal items slung over my shoulder. Within seconds, I can’t even see the house, but I know where the road is.

I stay in the trees, parallel to the small lane leading through the forest, and in another hour I’m coming out on the highway and can see the on-ramp for a small town nearby. Good thing I built up my leg muscles hiking through the hills with Em.

Just a short walk, a Greyhound ticket, and a bus ride to San Francisco.

I’m going to pay my last debt to Riker.

Then I'll end this insanity with the Pilgrims once and for all.