Page 3 of Her Remarkable Protector

At school, the so-called cool kids love to joke about my parents. A Canadian cop and a Montanan ex-prisoner—what does that make their kid? I let my T-shirt do the talking. But the whispers about the Stoneborn Circle stuck in my head, no matter how hard I tried to shove them into the back of my brain. I didn’t want to believe it. I told myself Dad wouldn’t go there. He wouldn’t.

But he did.

Dad always knew how to find the wrong kind of people. And now, they’ve found him.

“We don’t just take and leave. The boss calls it a ‘retribution fee.’” His laugh sets off chuckles from the others as he continues, “And let’s face it—you don’t have the cash to make it right.”

Dad keeps begging, his words overlapping theirs, all of it blending into a mess.

Until a shot rips through the house, and everything goes silent.

The closet. What was Mom thinking? It’s the worst place to hide. Everyone knows bad guys always check there first.

The voices downstairs rise in argument, but none of them belong to my father. How many are there? Three? Four? I can’t tell.

I need to move.

I slip out of my bedroom, stealthily making my way to the bathroom. There’s a cupboard, big enough for me to squeeze into. It smells like bleach, with just a couple of bottles shoved in the corner—it’ll be perfect.

I barely make it halfway when Mom appears at the top of the stairs, a silhouette against the dim light. Her gun is steady, aimed down the staircase.

Mom’s hand digs into my shoulder, pushing me toward the hall. “Go!” she snaps. I don’t know where, but she thinks I do—she always trusts me to figure it out.

A man rounds the bend of the stairs. With the wall between me and him, I freeze, pressing my back, trying to disappear into the wallpaper.

Then everything explodes. I don’t know who’s shooting who.

My legs move on autopilot, my hands clamped over my ears to block the chaos behind me.

But then it stops.

The gunfire. The yelling.

My feet are glued to the floor.

Slowly, though knowing it’s a bad idea, I turn around.

The hallway feels endless, and in the distance, I see him—a man crouched over Mom’s still body.

“What the fuck, Bomber!” the man snarls, his voice cracking with fury. He’s kneeling next to her, his gloved hands fumbling as he checks her. “You didn’t have to go this far!”

Come on, Mom.

She’s pretending. She has to be pretending. Any second now, she’ll strike, take them all out, show them why they should’ve never come here.

But nothing happens.

“Mom…” The word slips out, trembling on my lips.

“Argh, shit!” The second man—Bomber—spins, his gun snapping toward me.

“No! Leave the kid alone!” the crouching man barks, his voice rough but frantic.

“Never leave a witness, buddy,” Bomber growls, his finger tightening on the trigger.

I don’t look at him. I can’t. My eyes stay locked on the first man, crouched over my mother.

Why am I staring at him? Hoping he’ll help me? He’s just as bad as the other one—maybe worse.

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