Mike gently moved Annie behind him, shielding her with his battered body. Then he fixed Boris with a stare so cold it stopped the man where he stood. Step by step, fighting through pain that would have dropped most men, Mike moved forward.
Every motion cost him, but anger kept him upright. He remembered every line of that email. He remembered what Boris had done while Mike was bleeding overseas. Now it was time for Boris to answer for it.
“You thought you could terrorize my daughter while I was fighting to stay alive,” Mike said, his voice low and rough. The knife came up in one fast motion and stopped just short of Boris’s throat.
Boris broke. He dropped to the floor, crying openly now, grabbing at Mike’s torn pant leg. The front of his expensive athletic pants darkened with fear. The cruelty was gone. So was the act.
“Please,” he babbled. “Take the apartment, take everything. I’ll leave. I’ll disappear. You’ll never see me again.” He wiped his face with shaking hands, no dignity left in him at all.
Mike looked down at him with open disgust. Then he made a decision. He was not going to spill this man’s blood in front of his daughter.
He grabbed Boris by the collar and hauled him to his feet with a burst of strength that surprised them both. “Get out of my home,” Mike said. “And don’t ever come back.”
With one hard shove, he threw Boris out into the hallway. Then he ripped the forged guardianship papers into pieces and tossed them after him.
Boris tumbled down the stairs, hitting the railing on the way. He didn’t even try to stand with dignity. He scrambled down on hands and knees, like a beaten stray, and disappeared.
The front door shut with a solid click, cutting the nightmare off from them at last. Mike let the knife fall to the floor. The last of his strength gave out, and he slid down the wall into a sitting position.
Annie threw herself around his neck, kissing his dirty, unshaven face and talking through tears. She stroked his hair and kept saying the words she had needed to say for so long. She knew now that she was safe.
Then the phone in Mike’s chest pocket began to vibrate. It was the borrowed phone from the young lieutenant at the checkpoint. Mike pulled it out with shaking hands and saw an unfamiliar local number. He answered, not knowing the next piece of news would change everything again…
