I drive down an unfamiliar street and try my damnedest not to throw up. $49,000 and some change. That’s all I’ve got to show for ninety full minutes of hustle, and now it’s too late. The banks are closed. Ed packed up his papers and clocked out, and I have less than an hour and a half to scrounge up seven hundred grand from God knows where. What a nightmare.

Ed’s final words to me echo in my head. I’ll do it if you need me to. I’ll make that call. All you have to do is say the word.

For the first time today, I wonder if involving the police isn’t my best option. There are loads of home invasions in this city, drama you hear about every day on the news. Surely the cops have a SWAT team, a playbook, skilled negotiators who know what not to say. Surely they know to turn off the sirens. Surely they know how to avoid a standoff.

Only, how many of them end in tragedy?

My mind swirls with real-life scenarios I saw on the news. The pregnant lady shot in the stomach by a stray bullet, the girl who watched her twin sister get gunned down, the mother who escaped out the basement window only to have her entire family murdered when the cops busted down the door. I had to flip the channel because their stories were so tragic—and these are just the ones I can remember.

I think about what that would be like, having to live with the knowledge that my mistake cost me my family. Even if the cops came in quietly, even if they snuck through the trees in the neighbors’ yards and managed a surprise attack, they’d have to get inside the house somehow. They could probably get the alarm company to disarm the house, but he’d hear them coming from a mile away. Plenty of time to kill everyone including himself before the cops stormed up the stairs. What if they blow it? That kind of mistake is forever. You can’t put the pin back in that grenade.

No. I can’t risk it. It’s a potential death sentence. Involving the cops has got to be the absolute last resort.

So then...what? Call the house and explain? Beg him to hold off until the banks open in the morning? That would give me the rest of the night to pull together another four hundred thousand and think through my defenses. An automatic weapon. A Kevlar vest so I can take the bullets meant for Jade and the Bees. If I can hold him off until tomorrow, I’ll have time to come up with a plan.