The gavel came down.
Temporary full custody. Supervised visitation for Josie. CPS investigation ongoing.
I should have felt relief.
Instead, outside the courtroom, my phone buzzed again.
Unknown number.
This time, the message was a location: St. Catherine’s parking lot.
Under it, one line.
Come alone if you want your son’s ride to Portland to be peaceful.
I put the phone away before Josie could see.
“Nate?” she said.
“Go home.”
“I’m filing for divorce from Darren.”
“Good.”
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at the woman I had married at twenty-four, the woman who had danced barefoot with me in a kitchen while baby Jacob slept in the next room. Love did not die in one clean moment. It became evidence. It became history. It became something you could identify but not enter.
“I’m not ready to hear that,” I said.
At St. Catherine’s, Reba helped me ease Jacob into the back seat. His casts were bright blue. Someone had drawn a crooked smiley face on one.
“Did you do that?” I asked.
Jacob nodded. “My left hand is bad at faces.”
“It’s a great face.”
He tried to smile, then looked past me.
A black SUV rolled into the lot.
Four men got out.
The tallest one wore a gray coat and no expression. Shaved head. Neck tattoo curling above his collar. Same cold eyes as Darren, but smarter. Much smarter.
Maurice Parker.
He walked toward us slowly, as if the whole world had already agreed to move at his pace.
“Nathan Horn,” he said.
I stepped between him and my son.
Maurice smiled.
“Your boy looks fragile.”
My body became very quiet.
And behind me, Jacob whispered, “Dad… is that the man from the picture?”
### Part 4
Maurice heard him.
His smile changed by half an inch, and that half inch told me everything. He liked fear. Not loud fear. Not screaming. He liked the private kind that made a child whisper.
“We need to talk,” Maurice said.
“No,” I said. “My son is leaving.”
His three men spread without being told. One leaned against the SUV with his hand near his waistband. One chewed gum with his mouth open. One was built like a refrigerator and watched my feet instead of my face.
