Page 124 of Say You Will

Now, my emotions are front and center. And they’re exactly the problem I knew they’d be. If I open fire so close to Franki, let alone on people she knows, she’ll never recover completely from the trauma.

I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her alive, no matter what that is, but if there’s a possibility of getting this situation under control without further violence, I have to try. I promised her I’d be that man.

Franki’s heart is in her eyes as she looks at me. She won’t blame me. She’ll believe anything I do is because it’s necessary, not because rage pumps through my veins demanding I destroy anyone who has ever hurt her. She believes I’m a hero.

Other men make choices based on whether they can stand to look in the mirror afterward. I’ve never cared what I see in the mirror. I’ve spent most of my life making choices based on whether I could look Franki in the eyes and deserve her trust.

Emotions right now are the worst kind of liability. I reach for the numbness. I need to do nothing but think in this moment, not feel. Emotional novocaine serves a purpose. Where there used to be ice, molten lava flows in my veins.

The war inside me rages on, but I give no hint of it on the outside. My hand is steady as a rock, my voice frigid. “Guinevere,gun on the ground. All of you put your hands behind your heads. Now. You’re surrounded.”

Guinevere drops the gun, and she and the two men lift their hands.

“Franki, come over here.” I’m not certain she can walk, given that she hasn’t stopped leaning against the car, but she’ll tell me if she can’t.

As Franki straightens and steps forward, Guinevere dives at her and grabs Franki by the right arm, attempting to drag her into the car. Franki cries out, but she doesn’t hesitate. Just as we practiced, she twists until Guinevere’s arm is behind her back, and the actress is bent forward at the waist.

Immediately, she grasps her mother by the back of her head with her left hand and slams the woman’s face downward as she brings her knee up, nailing her in the nose.

Guinevere screams and falls to her ass on the gravel, both of her hands covering the damage as blood gushes through her fingers. “Myface.”

Franki runs in an awkward limping jog toward me. Oliver fights his way out of Spencer’s arms in an attempt to get to Franki as Dante descends on Guinevere, flex-cuffs at the ready.

“I’ll deal with her. You take the men,” I say.

As I pull Guinevere’s arms behind her back and apply a set of restraints, one of the men yells something.

At first, his words don’t make sense. I keep hearing the word “bank” until finally he strings his thoughts together in coherent sentences.

“Listen to me . . .” The man Spencer is securing with his own set of cuffs speaks desperately. Attempting to explain. “ . . . It wasn’t supposed to go like this. It’s loaded with blanks. We wouldn’t have shot anyone. It was a threat. To scare her. That’s all. No bullets. Only blanks.”

When the meaning of his words penetrates, I glance back at the man talking. “You have no idea how close you came to getting all of you killed.”

He blanches.

Franki rests on the grass and clutches Oliver against her chest with her left arm while Guinevere shrieks at her.

“My face will never look the same.How could you be so horrible?”

Franki ignores her, and the lack of response enrages Guinevere further. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

I secure the flex-cuffs on the woman’s wrists. “You’re right that a cosmetic surgeon will never manage a perfect match for your old nose, but you can stop worrying about your career. You’re going to a federal penitentiary. Your nose wouldn’t have lasted past your first fight over a bar of soap, anyway.” I use an obnoxiously reassuring tone.

“No one will convict me of anything. They’ll put me on the stand, and I’ll tell them it was all David.” Her expression softens. “We were trying to save her from her toxic boyfriend. I was protecting her. I didn’t have a clue how far he’d go.”

“I’m the reason we didn’t bring bullets, and this isn’t going to be an attempted murder charge,” David says bitterly. “You’re the one who made me keep going on the interstate when a couple of shots fired would have gotten the point across. I’m not taking the fall for this myself.”

I secure her from her upper arms to her ankles, and connect the cuffs behind her back, speaking too quietly for the mics on the cameras to pick up and presenting my back. “Part of me likes the idea of murdering you, but an even bigger part is going to enjoy every moment of what’s about to happen to you next. When you’re taken to trial, and the world watches and listens to the video feed from the cameras recording every second of this scene, and when the evidence of every crime you’ve committedagainst your daughter is presented in court, you’re going to rot in prison for a very long time. Franki and I are going to have a beautiful life. On the rare occasions we do think of you, it’ll be with pity and disgust. You’re about to become the one thing worse than dead for someone like you.”

I move my mouth into a close-lipped smile. “You’ll be irrelevant.”

I lean closer. “But you should know. If you and your accomplices aren’t suffering adequately, I’ll make certain to rectify that. There’s nowhere I can’t get to you. You’ll beg me to kill you.”

I leave Guinevere behind and walk to crouch beside Franki as she cradles Oliver to her.

Oliver whines, leaning toward me, and I lift him against me, where he lays his head on my shoulder. I rub his back, one arm tight around Franki’s waist as she hides her face in my chest, the other holding him against me.

“Good dog, Oliver,” I say. “Good fucking dog.”

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