Page 89 of Hearts of Fairlake

"I'll be sure not to do it too often. I wouldn't want to risk having to fight you over the title," I told him, mouth opening to continue the joke and then stopping, mouth hanging open as I strained to listen.

"What is it?" Kyle asked, his voice devoid of his previous annoyance or the growing humor I'd managed to bring back. I'd seen that look before whenever something serious happened that he felt he needed to pay attention to, which meant my sudden alarm was showing on my face.

"The crowd," I said softly and listened even more closely to the sounds outside the tent. Nearby was the normal babble and barks of laughter I'd heard all day, but even that sounded like it was starting to die down. I now realized that quieting was what had initially caused me to pause, but it was the sounds coming from a distance that had truly got my attention.

Shouting.

"Oh," Kyle said, eyes going wide. "Is that?—"

I didn't need him to finish that question any more than he needed to. Even at a distance, we could tell it was Ayla shouting. As the crowd around us grew quieter, having heard the commotion, it only made my daughter's fear all the more apparent.

Later, I wouldn't remember leaving the tent or bursting through the crowd like a bulldozer. Kyle would later say he’d never seen me act in such a way, barely paying attention to anyone as I shoved my way through the crowd toward the sound of my daughter. All I would remember was my daughter's voice, higher pitched in fear than I had ever heard it before and with a desperation I never wanted to hear again.

I reached the source of the confusion and stopped dead in my tracks, heart thundering in my chest as I pushed through the crowd of people in disbelief. Ayla was standing only a few yards away, facing the crowd, her face screwed up in a mixture of fear and fury I'd never seen before. She was held tight by another person, pinned by an arm that refused to let her loose as she snarled and snapped in her frustration and rage.

"Isabelle," I hissed, reaching not for the Taser in my belt but the gun.

Prison had not been kind to my ex, but I doubted she’d been any kinder to it while in there. Her hair had thinned, and the streaks of white and gray were even more apparent than mine. Lines that had barely been there before had gone even deeper into her skin, and there was a scar on her forehead that I belated realized must have come from when she'd crashed her car trying to escape the cops after kidnapping Ayla.

If I had thought the young woman I'd known and had genuinely loved once was gone before, there wasn't theslightest trace of her now. Instead, there was this...creature, skin as haggard as her face but with more hate and rage inside her than should ever exist in one person. Now she was here, holding my daughter hostage, arm wrapped awkwardly around Ayla's chest and up toward her neck, the other holding a knife against her side.

"Ayla!" I barked. "Don't!"

"Dad!" she said, and her eyes were wide and wet, her voice cracking like it used to do in that first year after Isabelle had left, and Ayla would wake in the middle of the night having had a nightmare that her mother had returned, killing me and then trying to do the same thing before she could wake up. I could remember holding my sobbing, six-year-old daughter on those nights, heart breaking for her, and a hatred that took forever to die festering in my heart.

Except now I realized that sometimes hate didn't always die. Sometimes, it found a nice dark place to curl up and sleep. Perhaps it would have stayed deep asleep if it had never been given a reason to wake, only occasionally fitfully dreaming whenever I remembered all this woman had put us through. But now she was here, a weapon held to my daughter's side, ready to try to take what had never been hers to possess in the first place.

"Don't," Isabelle hissed, and for a moment the knife wavered, and I knew it wasn't doubt on her part. No, I would bet she was wishing desperately we were closer so she could use that knife on me. I would be hard-pressed to guess who she was more furious at, Ayla for spurning her when Isabelle finally decided to come back, or me for standing in the way of what she wanted when she finally wanted it. Or perhaps she hated me more for the pure fact that I’d once scared her so badly she’d realized she couldn't terrorize me like she once had. "Don'tyoufucking dare!"

"Jesus fucking Christ," Kyle hissed beside me. "Where the fuck did she come from?"

"Shut your mouth," Isabelle snapped, knife twitching again at the sight of Kyle. It seemed there was enough hate inside her for Kyle as well, though I wasn't surprised. It had been my relationship with him that had compelled her to kidnap Ayla years ago. I had never got the full explanation as to why, but she’d let out a few slurs to let me know she was not comfortable with gay relationships. Then again, Isabelle had long since proven she didn't need to justify her hatred for something or someone. She was simply glad to have the opportunity.

I looked over the crowd that had backed away, either out of fear of the weapon or of accidentally causing Isabelle to use the weapon on Ayla. Officers showed up, with Bennett to my left near the small stall Isabelle was using to brace her back and Trevor opposite him. Others were there as well, but the grim look on Bennett's face caught my attention the most. I had never seen him look so serious, and I was reminded of the only time Bennett had been forced to use his sidearm to save someone else's life.

"I suppose shooting her is out of the question," Kyle muttered beside me, and I could feel the anger rolling off him in palpable waves that I swore, if possible, would have scorched the grass around us.

"I would in a heartbeat...if I could," I admitted, not caring one bit that it would result in the loss of life. Isabelle had already proven she wouldn't stop, no matter what was put into her path. Even being thwarted once and thrown into prison hadn't convinced her she should leave us all alone. Now, she had gone beyond just kidnapping Ayla. She was threatening my daughter with a weapon. I supposed it was technically our daughter, and it should have angered me thatshe was willing to hurt her own daughter, but I already knew Isabelle was long past that sort of humanity.

"Reiner," a voice hissed in my ear, and it took me a moment to realize it was Chief Price speaking over the radio. "You're not the one to handle this."

"Isabelle," I called again, raising my hands and ignoring the cursing over the radio. There was no doubt I would catch holy hell for it later, but right now, all that mattered was that my daughter needed me. "What're you doing here? What's the point of all this?"

"You think…" she said as if she was out of breath, which, for all I knew, she was. I didn't imagine she had easily gotten her hands on Ayla. The only reason she had probably gotten close to Ayla, other than the crowds and Ayla's guard was down, was that Isabelle didn't look like herself. If I hadn't been looking her dead in the eyes without distractions, my gaze might have passed over her with only a small tingle of discomfort and confusion before moving on. "That you can just...take everything from me? That you get to live your sick little life and leave me to rot?"

"You did that to yourself, you stupid, selfish bitch!" Ayla snarled, the fear gone from her eyes as she fought with sudden force. Kyle hissed beside me but stayed in place as Isabelle managed to keep her grip, but if the look on her face was any indication, that was a hard-won victory. "And you're going back to fucking prison!"

"Is that any way to speak to your mother?" Isabelle growled between clenched teeth, and my eyes widened when I saw the knife twitch, forcing Ayla to still. I didn't know for sure if the blade had penetrated, as my daughter gave no indication, but it was enough to get her attention and make her stop flailing against her mother's hold.

"You," Ayla began with a heaving chest, “are the womanwho gave birth to me, that's it. You...werenevermy mother, not even when you were around."

"Isabelle," I said in a forceful voice that swiftly stopped their discussion. There was enough authority in my voice that they promptly looked at me. "What are you doing here? What is it you want after all this time?"

Her eyes darted around madly, and I knew the sight of an animal trapped and looking for its exit. Before coming to Fairlake, I’d dealt with my fair share of criminals and desperate people in Denver. It was the same look in their eyes when they realized they were caught, cornered, and had almost zero chance of getting out of a situation without ending up in cuffs, the hospital, or the morgue. It was also the sort of realization that could destroy what little resistance the person had left or drive them to even worse desperation.

And if I were a betting man, I would bet Isabelle was the second type.

"She says I'm not her mother, but listen to that mouth," Isabelle said with a snort. "She's got my temper, that's for sure."

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