It’s done,” he whispered into the phone he held to his ear. “They won’t last long.”

Gone. The word slammed into me. This wasn’t an accident. This wasn’t food poisoning. This was a verdict. An execution. His footsteps were calm, unhurried, as he walked towards the front of the house. The click of the front door closing was the loudest sound I had ever heard.

A primal scream built in my throat, a volcano of rage and fear, but I swallowed it down, choking on the bile of betrayal. Every instinct, sharpened by years as an ER nurse and honed by the fierce, animalistic love of a mother, screamed one thing: stillness. I leaned my head, an impossibly heavy weight, toward Eli’s small ear.