Cane's POV
"THEY DIDN'T GIVE ME TIME!" he roared. He slammed his fist on his knee. Once. Twice. "It was a text. A photo of Josh, sleeping in his bed. Taken from inside the house. It said 'Three hours. Comply or we start with the little girl's pinky finger.' Three hours! What was I supposed to do? Run to you and say 'hey, bad guys have the kids, they're in the house right now taking pictures'? All I could think was keep them safe, keep them breathing! I picked what I thought was the only path! I WAS WRONG! I see that now! I have never been so wrong in my whole goddamn life!"
He collapsed back in the chair, spent. The fight was gone. Only the wreck was left.
The red-hot rage in my chest was still there. But underneath it, cold water was trickling in. The logic of it. The trap. A man who loved my kids, seeing their fingers getting cut off. Being given no way out. It didn't make it okay. Nothing could ever make it okay. But it... it made a sick kind of sense.
