Unless he’d built a wall to letting them in.

“Abel—”

“We’re movin’,” he declared.

“No, we need to talk about—”

“What I mean is, we’re movin’. From Serpentine Bay. Just you and me. Not my family. Yours can escort us, act as guard close to wherever I find for us to settle that’s out of the way and safe, but we’re goin’. And I’m sorry, Lilah, but that means you gotta leave your life behind and you need to start doin’ that while I look into finding us a place that’s safe.”

I stared at him, my throat getting tight.

It got tighter when he finished, “We’ll also leave behind your dad and his boys when we get to a place we can do that. It won’t be safe for them to know where we are either. But the way your dad is with you, he’s gonna have to have a part in gettin’ you where you’re goin’ and I gotta give him that. But he won’t be goin’ all the way.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked on a horrified whisper.

“This shit that’s goin’ down, it isn’t a surprise,” he explained. “I’ve had decades of premonitions that something like this was gonna happen. Now it’s happening. And the target isn’t my family. It’s you and it’s me. As much as I love them, as much as I owe them, as much as they’re a part of me, somethin’ in me knows I got one priority. You. I gotta focus on keepin’ you safe. I cannot focus on keepin’ everyone safe. But I gotta find a way to make them safe, and turn my focus solely to you, which means getting them out of danger. And that means us out of their lives.”

I couldn’t believe this.

“But that…that…” I shook my head. “That will destroy them.”

All of them. Jian-Li and my father especially.

His jaw got tight even as he replied, “Yeah, I know. Didn’t say I liked it, but it has to happen. They may be destroyed, but they’ll be it breathin’.”

“Abel, I don’t think—”

“Need you at my back with this, Lilah.”

I threw out both hands. “But I’m not sure I agree with you.”