HE SH.OT ME AT MY OWN MEDAL CEREMONY—THEN STILL CLAIMED I WAS ‘UNSTABLE.’”

Arthur didn't surrender.

A man who has spent forty years believing he is a god in his own county does not quietly put his hands behind his back.

In the flash of confusion as the federal agents moved to secure the perimeter, Arthur reached into the small of his back. He didn't have his Glock—that was sitting in an evidence locker at the base—but he had pulled a small, nickel-plated derringer from his boot.

He didn't aim it at me. He didn't aim it at Luke.

He grabbed Nora by the hair, yanked her violently backward, and pressed the twin barrels directly against the soft skin beneath her jaw.

"Back off!" Arthur screamed, his voice cracking into a ragged, hysterical shriek. "Back off or I swear to God I’ll paint this driveway with her!"

The crowd screamed, scattering in a blind panic toward the road. Reporters dropped their cameras, tripping over cables as they fled. The federal agents instantly raised their weapons, a chorus of shouts filling the night: "Drop the gun! Federal agents! Put it down!"

"Get in the car, Nora!" Arthur snarled, dragging my sister toward the idling Lincoln Navigator parked beside the house. "Move your legs, you little traitor, or I’ll end you right here!"

Nora gasped, her fingers clawing at his wrists, her heels dragging through the gravel.

"Arthur, don't do this!" Luke shouted, keeping his weapon leveled, moving in a slow lateral circle. "There’s nowhere to go! The marsh has one exit! We have air support inbound!"

"Shut up! Shut up!" Arthur yelled, his eyes rolling back in his head like a rabid horse.

He shoved Nora into the passenger seat of the SUV, dived into the driver’s side, and slammed the door. The heavy V8 engine roared to life with a deafening screech of tires, spitting wet gravel into the faces of the advancing agents.

The Navigator didn't head toward the front gate—it couldn't; the federal Suburbans blocked the lane.

Arthur cranked the wheel to the left, crashing through the wooden rail fence that led toward the back of the property—toward the private boat dock that opened into the black, winding tributaries of the Combahee River swamp.

"He’s got a cigarette boat at the landing!" I yelled, limping toward Luke’s truck, the pain in my hip completely drowned out by the roar of adrenaline. "If he gets her into the marsh, he’ll kill her and dump her in the salt grass!"

"Maya, you can't go!" Luke yelled, catching my arm. "You’re non-weight-bearing! Let the tactical team handle it!"

"He’s not running from a tactical team, Luke!" I roared, yanking my arm free with a ferocity that startled him. "He’s running from *me*! He knows that swamp, and so do I! Give me the keys!"

Luke looked at my eyes. He saw what twelve years of Arthur’s abuse had built: not a victim, but an executioner of his legacy.

He didn't argue. He turned and sprinted toward the driver’s seat. "Get in!"

The Suburban’s tires caught the wet grass with an explosive four-wheel slide. We blew past the splintered remains of the fence, the heavy suspension taking the ruts of the pasture at fifty miles per hour. The branches of ancient live oaks whipped against the windshield like skeleton fingers, Spanish moss draping over the hood in long, gray shrouds.

Half a mile back, the tree line broke into the black, mirror-flat surface of the tidal creek.

The Lincoln Navigator sat abandoned at the edge of the wooden dock, its driver’s door swinging open, the engine ticking in the hot night air.

Down at the slip, the twin engines of Arthur’s forty-foot center-console boat were already coughing into life, their exhaust bubbling through the black water in a deep, rhythmic thrum.

"Nora!" I screamed, tumbling out of the passenger side of the truck before it had fully stopped.

I discarded the crutch.

The pain that ripped through my left hip was incandescent—like someone was driving an iron spike into my marrow with every step. But I ignored it. I leaned into the limp, using the momentum of my forward fall to drive my boots into the slick, algae-covered planks of the dock.

Fifty feet out, Arthur was standing at the helm, wrestling with the throttle. Nora was on the deck behind him, crawling toward the stern, trying to throw herself into the dark water.

Arthur turned, saw her moving, and lunged backward, his boot catching her across the ribs. Nora cried out, curling into a ball against the gunwale.

"Maya!" she screamed, her voice cracking over the sound of the engines.

Arthur looked up and saw me limping down the dock.

The moonlight caught the silver bars on my shoulders, the gold buttons of my dress uniform, the blood that was once again beginning to seep through the fabric of my trousers.

He raised the derringer.

"You should have stayed in the hospital!" he roared over the roar of the outboards.

*Click.*

The hammer fell on a wet primer.

The derringer had misfired—the salt humidity had ruined the cheap powder.

Arthur let out a curse and reached for the heavy iron mooring cleat lying on the deck beside the console.

I didn't draw my gun.

I didn't reach for the Sig Sauer beneath my jacket.

I didn't want him dead in the dark water where he could become a martyr to his country club friends. I didn't want him to slip away into the mud of the Combahee like my mother had.

I launched myself off the end of the dock.

My boots hit the fiberglass bow of the boat with a crashing thud. The impact sent a shockwave through my shattered pelvis that brought the taste of bile into my throat, but my right hand shot forward like a steel clamp, locking around the lapels of his white linen shirt.