Amara's POV

Terror had a taste, sharp, metallic, and suffocating. It filled my throat as I stood frozen before the man holding my son at gunpoint. Eli’s trembling body seemed so small, so fragile, his wide eyes searching for me, silently begging me to save him. Every fiber of my being screamed to move, to throw myself between him and that weapon, but the barrel pressed against his temple kept me still.

Marchand sat calmly in my grandmother’s armchair, watching the fear unfold as though it ...