“Cam.” The gun’s barrel is flush to my forehead, jabbing it into the bone, pressing hard enough to leave a bruise. Icy metal against scalding skin.

I think about my children in the next room, my husband on the phone, how if this man pulls the trigger now, they will hear everything. The gunshot, my insides splattering onto the wall. This will be their last memory of me, the exact moment they heard me die.

He pushes harder.

“He wants the money today, Cam. All of it. By seven.”

A long pause filled with exhaled air, hard and sharp like Cam had been gut punched.

“Okay. Okay. I’ll figure something out. I don’t know what, but I’ll do it. Hold on, babe, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Please hurry.” A shuddery spasm traps in my throat, a sob struggling to escape.

“Jade, just...hold tight, okay? Take care of the Bees, tell them I love them. I will be there as soon as humanly possible. I love y—”

Click. With a rubber-tipped finger, the man pushes End.

C A M

4:19 p.m.

The air in the truck’s cab reeks of sweat and terror. The light up ahead flips to yellow, and the sea of traffic in front of me glows eerie red, brake lights as far as I can see. I screech to a stop behind a white SUV, slam the steering wheel with the heel of my hand, my whole world turning crimson.

A masked man. A gun. My wife tied to a fucking chair.

The call was coming from inside the house.

And the kids are, what—splayed on the carpet on the playroom floor? Strapped to one of the recliners, a sock stuffed into their mouths? The horrible, awful vision slips like black smoke across my mind, and I pound the wheel and howl into my car because I don’t know. I don’t know if they’re bound and gagged, if they’re conscious, if they’re even really alive. For now, Jade said when I asked if they were okay, and as much as I believe my wife, I know one thing with one hundred thousand percent certainty: never believe the asshole with the gun.

Calm down, Cam. You can’t save any of them if you drop dead of a heart attack. Calm down and breathe.

But it’s hard getting any air with this Mack truck sitting on my chest. My heart is a clenched fist, punching a fast, erratic beat against my ribs. I’m on the verge of blacking out—an all too familiar sensation these days, like floating out of my body and watching myself die from three feet above.

Only you don’t die from panic attacks or atrial fibrillation or whatever the hell else the ER doc told me these episodes could be. You only feel like it.