“Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“You can talk right here.” I keep my voice level. Keep my hands visible. “It’s my son’s birthday party.”
He nods. Like he wishes he’d come any other day. “Hunter Sterling. You are under arrest for the murder of Ashley Edwards.”
The words land like a bullet to the chest. Not just because they’re a surprise. But because Wyatt is twenty feet behind me.
My ears start to ring. Ashley is dead?
I can hear the party going quiet inside. The music cutting out. Someone shushing someone. The scrape of chairs. I can feel every pair of eyes in that house turning toward the open door at my back.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney?—”
“I understand my rights,” I say, and my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. Someone far away.
The deputy steps forward with the cuffs, and I don’t resist. I turn around slowly, hands behind my back, and that’s when I see him.
Wyatt.
Standing in the hallway. Rex pressed against his leg. Gary behind him. His new boxing gloves still dangling from one hand by the laces.
His face.
I’ll carry his face with me for the rest of my life. The confusion of a six-year-old watching his father get handcuffed on his birthday for murdering his mother. The way his bottom lip trembles before the sound even comes out. The way his eyes go wide with a terror no child should ever have to feel.
“Daddy?”
The word cracks something in me that I know will never fully heal.
“Hey, bud.” I keep my voice steady. Somehow. “It’s okay. Daddy has to go talk to some people, all right? I’ll be home soon.”
Ace is already moving. He scoops Wyatt up and presses the kid’s face into his shoulder so he can’t see the cuffs clicking shut around my wrists. Wyatt fights it and pushes against Ace’s chest, craning his neck back toward me.
“Daddy! Daddy, where are you going?”
“I’ll be back, Wyatt. I promise.” The steel bites into my skin. “Uncle Ace is gonna stay with you. You’re gonna be brave for me, yeah?”
He’s crying now. Full, heaving, hiccupping sobs that fill the hallway and spill out onto the porch and echo across the fields like something wounded.
I look at Ace over Wyatt’s shoulder. He gives me a single nod. His jaw is set so tight I can see the veins in his neck. He’s furious, but he’s holding it together because the kid comes first. He knows that. We all know that.
Colten, Jett, and Tate have appeared in the doorway. Tate has his phone in his hand. Jett’s arms are crossed, his whole body vibrating with the effort of not stepping off that porch.
“Don’t,” I tell him with a look. Not in front of my son.
Jett’s jaw flexes. But he stays.
“I’m going with him.” Reese. His voice cuts through the chaos from inside the house, and then he’s pushing past Jett, past Tate, coming down the porch steps with his jacket already on and his phone already pressed to his ear.
He looks at me. Really looks at me. And whatever was between us an hour ago, it evaporates. What’s left is the kid I grew up with. The man who passed the bar for moments exactly like this.
“Don’t say a word,” he tells me as he falls into step beside the deputies. “Not a single word to anyone until I’m in the room. Do you hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“Hunter. I mean it. Nothing.”
“I hear you.”