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Ben laughed. “Easy, lover boy,” he said. “There’ll be enough to go around.”

“Kill them now,” the Ramirez urged. “Don’t leave any lose ends.”

“A little fun first,” Ben suggested, approaching me.

“Lay your hands on her and you’ll die,” Tyler promised.

“I had her when she was still a little girl from the ghetto,” Ben said, looking at Tyler and chuckling. “I haven’t had her since she became a woman. How about it? Is she any good?”

“Fuck you,” Tyler said, keeping his eyes on me. I was ready for anything. If he nodded at me, I would kick ass.

I was saved by the next commotion on the stairs.

“What in the hell are you all doing down—oh.”

Ben’s father stood at the base of the stairs, taking all of us in. I watched the idea that there was some serious shit going on down here dawn on him.

“We’ve had some intruders,” Ben said. “Enrique and I are about to get rid of them.”

“Get rid of them how?” Mr. Paxton asked dubiously.

“Get rid of them how do you think?” Ben shot back. “We’re going to kill them and dump their bodies in the river.”

“I think you’ve been spending too much time around our cartel friends,” Mr. Paxton said, eyeing the Ramirez with distaste.

“You would know,” Ben said. “You’re the one who sent me to Mexico when I was eighteen.”

“You needed a little vacation and to help us make some business connections,” Mr. Paxton said, “not to become a savage. I see what happened now. You were never the same.”

The time that Ben had disappeared and come back a different man. He’d been in Mexico, with the cartels. The idea made me gag.

“You wouldn’t believe the things I saw and took part in,” Ben said softly, and I shivered. This was the man who had been raising my child.

“Please,” I said. “All I want is Trevor. Tyler and I will go. That’s all we came for.”

“That’s not true,” Tyler said, his voice ringing out even if it was a little nasal from his bloody nose. “We were going to blackmail you.”

Who said anything about blackmail? I was confused, staring at Tyler.

“Blackmail?” Ben asked, laughing. “You? Blackmail us? We’re the Paxton’s, you ass. You don’t blackmail us.”

“We’ve been systematically gathering evidence over the past months,” Tyler said. “I have all of this evidence in a folder beneath my jacket.”

“Why?” Ben asked, squinting at him.

“Because that’s where it’s safest,” Tyler said. “With me at all times. You burned Shimmy’s apartment. I couldn’t have our evidence going up in flames.”

Mr. Paxton cut his eyes at Ben but didn’t say anything. It was becoming clear that the father didn’t have control over his son.

“Let’s see this evidence, if you really have it,” Mr. Paxton said.

I tensed. Was Tyler going to pull a gun out from beneath his jacket? I had to be ready for anything.

The fact that he actually had a folder beneath his jacket was more shocking than anything else he could’ve pulled out from under there. I hadn’t seen him get a folder or put it under his jacket. What was going on?

I had a terrible thought: Was Tyler playing me for a fool? What was all this blackmail nonsense?

I was shocked again to see that it was my folder and my evidence—the photos of my bruised arms, the note from the brick, and other pieces of information I’d gathered over these last few tense months. Added to it was intelligence that Tyler had gleaned—photos of men carrying boxes to and from the house, a photo of Ramirez, the cartel guy standing there in the basement with us, and even a few choice shots of the Paxton’s, going about their daily lives in the middle of a sophisticated drug ring.

“Is this everything?” Mr. Paxton demanded, leafing through the folder. “All of it?”

“No,” Tyler said. “Shimmy, give him the camera.”

My eyes widened. Nobody had known about the camera but Tyler and me. Why had he given it up? It still could’ve been our ace in the hole.

“Let’s have it,” Mr. Paxton said, snapping his fingers and walking over to me.

Grudgingly, I removed the camera from my pocket and handed it to Ben’s father, who turned it on. I heard my hissed whisper from the speakers as he played the video I’d taken.

“Nail in the coffin,” the recording crowed, and I hated myself. It was obvious that I couldn’t trust Tyler. He seemed to be playing a game that I didn’t know the rules to. And the Paxton’s? Forget about it. Ben had already threatened to kill me once before and that was before I knew about the drug smuggling portion of the family business.

I was done for. I’d tried and tried to do the right thing, risking everything to try to find the evidence necessary to get my son, but this was it. There was no way out, now.

Giving up. I thought I’d never see the day when I threw in the towel, but this was too much for me to deal. I felt strangely light, as if all of my goals and responsibilities and thinking about my son had been all that was keeping me on the ground.

Then, with a shattering jolt, I came back to myself.

“Ben?” The voice carried down from the top of the stairs. “Come say goodnight to your son.”

My insides twisted at the thought of the monster in front of me kissing my son goodnight. No. This wasn’t over. This couldn’t be over. I was a fucking grizzly bear mama and I could count a few people standing between me and my baby.

“Why don’t you bring Trevor down here?” Ben called up. “I’m a little busy.”

“You know I don’t like him around that shit,” Mrs. Paxton snapped. “Now get your ass up here.”

“Bring the kid down here now, bitch!” Ben roared, making all of us jump. The top of the stairs was silent for a long minute until we all heard soft footsteps.

“I don’t know why you were so insistent on us coming down here,” Mrs. Paxton said, carrying my son, before she looked up and realized what kind of mess she walked in to. Her eyes narrowed at me.

“Mom, you remember Shimmy, of course,” Ben said, holding his hand out at me.

“Trash,” she sneered.

“Mind your manners,” Tyler warned, spitting again, but I didn’t understand why he was trying. Didn’t we establish that he wasn’t on my side anymore? Wasn’t that alliance or dalliance or whatever it was over once he’d turned over the evidence?

“Hi, baby,” I said, holding my arms out and smiling at my son, refusing to let him see how terrified and desperate I was. “Hi, Trevor. Are you going night-night?”

He looked at me with my very own eyes and smiled sleepily, nodding. It squeezed my heart.

“What are they doing here?” Mrs. Paxton demanded.

      “Blackmail, they said,” Mr. Paxton said, taking the memory card from the camera and then crushing the device underneath his heel.

“Really?” she scoffed.

“They have a lot of evidence,” Mr. Paxton said, handing her the folder of all our painstaking research and horrifying experiences.

Mrs. Paxton set her jaw as she turned through the folder, her frown deepening with every page she turned.

“Out of curiosity,” she said, not looking up, “what were you intending on getting out of this? Money? Drugs? What?”

“This woman’s son,” Tyler said, and Trevor shifted in Mrs. Paxton’s arms to see who was talking.

“I don’t understand,” Mr. Paxton said. “You said this was blackmail.”

“Right,” Tyler said. “But circumstances shifted a little bit out of our control.”

“As an understatement,” Ben muttered.

      “We were going to offer up the evidence we’d collected in exchange for Trevor,” Tyler said.

“Why?” Mrs. Paxton asked, clearly aghast that more precious things weren’t being demanded.

“Because he’s my baby,” I said, a tear slipping down my cheek. “Because I love him. Because everything I do is for him. Please, please give me my baby.”

“All of the evidence we’ve been gathering is here,” Tyler said. “We can end this right now. Let us leave with the baby, and you can have all proof of your various misdeeds.”

“You’re not seriously considering this,” Ramirez said. “These people know who we are and what we do. Who’s to say they’re not going to come back for another shakedown sometime in the future? The stakes will probably be higher next time than one little brat. I say we kill them all, and be done with it.”

Ben’s parents exchanged a horrified glance, but Ben simply accepted whatever plan Ramirez had. He was too far gone to be human.

I started to believe that the Paxton’s were in over their heads. They had probably agreed to transport drugs in exchange for some serious cash, but now the cartel was trying to assert its own values over the operation and how it was run.

“Nobody’s going to be killed here,” Mr. Paxton said. “And none of this evidence will ever see the light of day. I’m going to destroy it immediately.”

“And my son?” I asked, only vaguely aware of the tears that just wouldn’t stop falling.

“We’ll send him to you after you and your boyfriend leave town,” Mr. Paxton said.

Both Mrs. Paxton and me gave tortured gasps.

“Are you really thinking about sending Trevor away?” she demanded.

“Send him with us now,” I demanded.

“I want you all out of the country before you can change your mind about giving any of this information to the police,” Mr. Paxton said. “With both of their testimony, the police would have a reason to come snooping around here. You remember how badly it held up distribution when CPS came to investigate.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Ramirez said. “I hated that shit. But just waste these assholes and let’s get back to business. Eliminate the doubt.”

“No,” Mr. Paxton said, his voice strong. “This is a family company and we won’t have blood on our hands.”

“So if we leave, you promise to send us the baby,” Tyler said slowly.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Please. Let us take him with us. Please. You’ll never hear from us again, I swear it. I swear it.”

      “Then we’d have no guarantee that you’d hold up to your end of the bargain if I didn’t have my bargaining chip,” Mr. Paxton said.

“I can’t leave him again,” I sobbed. “I won’t.”

Trevor began to bawl, big tears rolling down his chubby little cheeks. I wanted to wrap him up in my arms and take him far away from this place. Why wouldn’t anyone let me?

“We’ll go,” Tyler said. “We’ll send word to you whenever we reach our destination.”

I was crying too hard to see him walk over and take my hand.

“If you’re not gone in an hour, the cartel will handle you,” Ramirez sneered.

“We said no killing,” Mr. Paxton protested.

“This isn’t a Paxton affair,” Ramirez said. “This is cartel business.”

“We’re leaving,” Tyler said quickly, putting an arm around my shoulder. “You’ll hear from us soon.”

Trevor’s wails followed us up the stairs as the security guard hustled us along. I could see to walk. I’d lost my baby again. I knew it. I knew it. I shouldn’t have left him. I should’ve fought or tried to do something. Why was I so weak? What was wrong with me? Where was fucking grizzly bear mama I thought I was?