“I know your boys are here.”

His voice was still controlled, just as unnaturally and unpleasantly calm.

“So where did you hide them?”

The blood ran from her forehead over her cheeks, and when she shook her head in response to his question, it changed direction, perhaps bled even more as it broke into three smaller rivers down her throat and onto her breast and quite a bit onto the floor.

“You get one more try. Before I shoot.”

He cocked his gun, looked at her with his predator’s gaze. He didn’t know she’d made up her mind.

She wasn’t going to say a word.

And she wasn’t going to close her eyes when he pulled the trigger.

Chapter 48

Luiza lay in Rasmus’s arms. She was sleeping, her breath deep and even. He had to remember to tell his little brother later how proud he was of him, it’s easy to forget if you don’t make a point of it.

He was still standing on top of the iron stand. From there it was possible to hear what they were saying on the other side of the floor. They weren’t screaming. They barely sounded threatening. But there was a threat.

He could see Mom in front of him. That expression that just drove a person crazy. When she’d really made up her mind.

“So where did you hide them?”

The man’s voice was angrier now. And it was hard to make out what was happening, a dull blow like when you hit your leg, and a heavy thump like when you fall on the floor. But even though he couldn’t see, he just knew somehow anyway. And it didn’t feel good.

“You get one more try. Before I shoot.”

That deep, strange voice.

Hugo felt it stabbing in his stomach and chest.

He understood—this was real. They weren’t just threatening Mom, they were going to kill her. And he didn’t think, he just did it. He shouted at the hole in the ceiling that was also the hole in the floor.

“We’re here!”

As loud as he could.

“Don’t shoot our mom!”

Silence. They’d heard him. They’d been listening. They weren’t going to shoot.

Until it wasn’t quiet anymore.

He jerked at the first shot. He lost his balance and fell down from the iron stand on the second shot. Then he screamed, and Luiza screamed, awake now.

Chapter 49

Zofia had kept her promise to herself. She had protected her children. And she didn’t close her eyes when the shots went off.

In the midst of everything she imagined Hugo’s voice. Imagined he was screaming, revealing where they hid.

As if death were playing a joke on her.

It took a while for her to realize it wasn’t the man with the predator eyes who was shooting. Because he was the one who fell. And after him, the other man landed on top of him, his equally masked colleague.

They were the ones death was playing with.