“You’re right,” Kip spat back. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s yours. She was fine before you came along. You made her into a whore.”

The man was legit crazy.

“You really are making me want to put a bullet between your eyes,” Reece countered, his voice threaded with barely controlled anger.

“And you really want me to finish this?”

The muscle flexed along Reece’s jaw. “Bud, all I want you to do is really think about—­”

“Don’t come any closer.” Kip pushed the knife into my skin, causing me to yelp. A thin trickle of wet warmth ran down my throat as he stepped to the side, bringing me with him. “I swear to God, I will end her!”

“I’m not coming any closer.” Reece kept the gun level. “But I want to know what you’re thinking. How you’re planning for this to go down.”

“Does that really fucking matter?” Kip stepped again, and Reece didn’t move toward him, but he mirrored his movements until we’d switched positions. Our backs were to the closet now. “There’s no way out of this. I’m not fucking stupid. I know what needs to be done.”

My pulse skyrocketed as Kip’s fingers flexed around the handle of the knife. My mind raced into scary places, one where my throat ended up slit and Kip got away with everything he’d done by doing one thing. Committing suicide via police officer. Kip knew he was done. I doubted he would just put the knife down and surrender.

I saw Reece’s gaze slide to the left, behind us for just a fraction of a second, but I could’ve been imagining it or seeing things, because my vision wasn’t the greatest without my glasses and one open eye.

“We can talk this out,” Reece said, lowering his gun. “You and me. We talk this through. Let Roxy go, and it will be just you and me.”

I could feel Kip shaking his head behind me, and I drew in a shallow breath. Any move I made would most likely result in the knife cutting into my skin, but I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. My head spun. What could I do that wasn’t virtual suicide?

If this was going to be my last ­couple of minutes on Earth, I wished I could kiss him just one more time, feel his hands on me.

My voice was shaky when I spoke. “Reece, I . . . I love you.”

“Babe, you’re going to tell me that again for a long time coming, you understand?” Reece didn’t look at me since he was trained on Kip. “But Kip and me are going to talk this out. He’s going to let you go, and we’re going to chat about this.”