He suppressed it just as another boot drove towards him.

Sam rolled into it, clutching Edinson’s foot with both hands, and he twisted with all his might.

He heard the bone snap.

The cartilage rupture.

Edinson collapsed to the ground like a tree falling in the forest, and the table nearby shook as he hit the deck. Sam let go of the man’s broken ankle, shaking the pain from his own fractured wrist, which had absorbed most of the blow, and scrambled once more towards the gun.

He reached out with his fingers, the tips of them brushing the cool steel that would save his life.

Edinson’s grip on his ankle was like a bear trap, and Sam felt himself hauled back across the wooden floor. He tried to throw a punch, but Edinson shook it off, slamming Sam’s cast against the floor. Sam howled in agony.

He nearly passed out as Edinson crushed it against the floor under the full might of his fist.

Edinson then reintroduced Sam’s cheek to his knuckle, cracking Sam with such velocity that a tooth shot across the floor, succeeded by a spray of blood.

Sam urged his body to move, willed himself to move away, but he couldn’t. With his organs still rattled, his wrist a shattered wreck and his consciousness swirling, Sam felt the first cruel touch of death creeping towards him.

Another fist landed square against his jaw once more, rattling it horrifically and somehow not taking it clean off.

The room went blurry, and Sam stared up at the ceiling.

He’d tried.

That’s all he’d ever done.

Try to fight back.

Try to put right the wrongs that the world turned a blind eye to.

Somewhere along the way, the world and the accepted reality of life had cruelly dealt Alex Stone a bad hand and had just expected her to cope.

Sam had tried to make that right.

Tried to get her back to where her heart had beckoned.

He’d failed.

As he took a few deep, hard breaths, he gently rested his head back against the hardwood floor. The blurring in his vision had begun to subside, and he could see Edinson shuffling through the shattered remains of the chair Sam had struck him with. Whatever pain Sam had inflicted, it didn’t show, and Edinson’s eyes glistened as he lifted one of the broken legs, the snap of the wood providing a sharp edge.

With saliva and blood pooling from his broken jaw, the murderous giant dragged himself towards Sam, ignoring the searing pain of his snapped ankle.

He stopped next to Sam, flipped the wood around his hand and with both hands clutching it, he lifted it into the air, determined to drive his entire body weight behind the fatal plunge.

Sam shut his eyes, expecting death.

All he saw was his son.

Jamie.