The shot was so loud it echoed in my ears. Like ants, they all started to run, tripping over one another as I fell backward. Murphy and the other guards grabbed hold of me, all of them pulling me into the safety of the hospital. I knew they were screaming, I could see their mouths moving, but I couldn't hear anything. Glancing down at my white Valentino shirt, I saw blood now soaked into the fabric and only one thought came to my mind.

Liam...I'm going first.

FOURTEEN.

"A reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying."

~ Albert Camus NEAL.

12:24 PM.

"You're out of mayo." I frowned, glaring at my very plain turkey and cheese sandwich. "How am I supposed to eat this without mayo?"

He didn't answer. Well, he couldn't answer.

Our police commissioner...former police commissioner...was too busy weeping, naked and bloody on his living room floor, his legs and arms bound. He actually looked like a pig ready for slaughter-a pale pig, but a pig nonetheless.

Opening the fridge, I searched high and low, but he was apparently one of those goddamn health nuts. Gluten-free shit, fruit, kale...how do people fucking live like this?

"Freaks," I grumbled, grabbing my humble sandwich and walking around the kitchen, eyeing the black granite countertops. I entered the living room, sat in the middle of the couch, and kicked my feet up on the glass coffee table.

"Nice house. I think high ceilings are always the best choice. It makes the house feel open and airy. Plus all the extra natural sunlight really helps," I told him before taking a bite. I'm not sure if this actually tastes good or I am just really hungry.

"Gmmsh." He grunted against the duck tape over his mouth.

"I'm sorry, you're going have to speak English...or Irish, if you know it, which I would be pretty impressed at because not many people speak it here anymore. It's more like pidgin, used to drive my father crazy," I replied, taking another bite.

I wasn't sure what I'd said but he got riled up, screaming and twisting his body as if that would really help him get out of the zip ties or something. He grunted and scowled, his pale face turning pinker and then redder each passing second. Reaching over to the coffee table in front of me, I took the crystal coaster and threw it right at his head.

"Calm the fuck down, Jesus. You're going to give yourself a heart attack you know. And where is the fun in that?"

He rolled over onto his side. The blood...first one drop, then two, then far more than I could care to count...slowly began to spill from his head.

"You still with me, Commissioner?" I paused mid bite. He didn't reply, or move, or even seem to breathe. "Well, this is disappointing. I'll just make myself at home then until you come to...I wonder if you have milk." Reaching forward, I took the remote, turned on the television, and got up, heading back to the kitchen. Of course, it was soy milk. Fucking shit.

"We go back to Andre Curry, with our breaking news..."

"Thanks, John! Ladies and gentlemen, we're just across the street from Merry West Hospital, the location in which just moments ago, current Illinois governor Melody Callahan was shot-"

Everything in my hands fell and slipped to the ground. It all slowed down, everything: my heartbeat, my breathing, me turning back, the reporter on the screen. Everything was slow with the exception of Mel. The video of her speaking one moment, then falling back, it all lasted two, maybe three seconds, and they just had it on loop. Melody talking. Melody falling. Mina screaming. Melody being rushed inside. Over and over and over again. Melody talking. Melody falling. Mina screaming. Melody being rushed inside.

"We have no current update from the hospital, however, John, there is a lot of blood in front of those hospital doors."

Liam...he's going to...kill, everyone.

DECLAN.

12:30 PM.

He was laughing.

He looked beside himself with happiness.

Every time he was with his kids, he couldn't help but smile, even now as he was teaching both Ethan and Wyatt how to bandage their own wounds. Dona sat beside them, watching, and every once in a while he'd reach over and brush her hair back. They were in pain, all three of them, Ethan, Wyatt and Dona, but they still listened carefully, watching as he showed them how he wrapped his arm with one hand.

"Wyatt, you're a natural." Liam laughed.

"Of course." Wyatt puffed out his chest, wincing once but still holding up his bandaged hand with pride. "Ethan, having trouble?"

Ethan ignored him and tried to focus on wrapping neatly. Giving up, he sighed and held out his hand to Wyatt. "Do it for me."

"What? No!"

"Teamwork, remember! Right, Dona?" Ethan grinned and I could see the same look in his eyes that Liam had whenever he was up to something.

"Right!" Dona threw her fist up. "Come on, Wyatt."

"Dad!"

Liam just shrugged. "Are you really going to let your brother suffer alone? He's useless without you."

"Hey! Don't give him a big head!" Ethan hollered. Wyatt grabbed his arm. "Ouch!"

"You big baby," he muttered to his brother, laughing.

Finally, Liam glanced over to me. Kissing Dona's forehead, he got up, and I wished he hadn't. I wished he had just stayed in that moment with them for another second, another minute; the closer he came to me, the farther into hell he was.

"Ethan knows how to tie it," he muttered more to himself than to me, glancing over his shoulder. "He knows but he just wants Wyatt to feel good about himself. I think I overreacted to Wyatt. Ethan loves his brother, and I don't think anything can ever change that."

I said nothing, just stared at him, my heart ringing in my ears. He was going to kill me for hesitating but I...I knew what would happen when I said the words.

Finally, he turned back to me. His eyes looked me over once, his body tensing up as he saw my face. "Declan. What is it?"

Fuck.

"Declan-"

"Mel." The moment I said her name, his green eyes widened. "She was shot...I don't know how bad but...Mina was screaming and she's in surgery."

He took a step back from me, a small smile on his lips as he shook his head. "What are you talking about? Mel went to take a shower. We are all having lunch-"

"Liam."

"Don't fucking play with me, Declan!" He grabbed my throat, slamming my back up against the elevator doors. "Don't joke like this, Declan. I will kill you!"

"Liam!" Cora screamed, running over to us. I wasn't sure how I had missed her standing there...actually, that was a lie. For the first time since I'd met her, she wasn't important right then; Liam was.

"She's at Merry West," I whispered.

He just stared at me for the longest time, his grip never loosening, not even once. Again he shook his head.

"Cora...kids...safe...house." It was the last thing he said before he let go of me. Getting into the elevator with his head down, I wasn't even sure if he was breathing.

"Liam, I'll drive-"

The look in his eyes when I spoke...it was bloodcurdling. I never once thought he would actually kill me, but I had no doubt that if I'd gotten on that elevator with him, he'd slit my throat.

He was homicidal.

LIAM.

12:32 PM.

My wife.

My Melody.

She doesn't die.

I had lost count of how many motherfucking times some fool had tried to take her from me, but each time she came back. It wasn't some miracle and it wasn't even by the grace of God. She didn't die because Mel...she was a phoenix.

It was that thought alone that made me go to our room. I stripped down and changed into the fitted dark navy suit and green tie she had gotten me. I'd never forget it...it was too perfect to forget. We had had a huge fight hours before, yet I couldn't remember what it was about, just her at the door of my closet, her dressed in nothing but panties and a robe.

EIGHT YEARS BEFORE.

"I don't like your ties." She frowned, leaning on the frame of my door, her red robe completely open, thus defeating the purpose of having one...not that I cared at all.

"I'm sorry they offend you so much," I muttered, looking her over before polishing my shoes.

"Yeah...well...stop being upset at me," she blurted out.

"Of course, your highness, I'll just do whatever it is you ask of me without thinking on my own."

"Really? You're mocking me now?"

"Mocking you? No, I'm mocking me, because apparently I'm a fucking idiot!" I snapped, throwing the shoe to the side.

"And childish, too."

Rising from my chair, I grabbed her tiny neck. "You keep using my love for you as an excuse to run your mouth, Melody, I will kill you." She drove me insane.

She smiled as she wrapped a tie I hadn't realized she had around my neck, pulling me closer to her. "If you want to kill me then go ahead, but remember the unspoken rule between us. You are mine, Liam. You belong to me. Your face, your body, your heart, your soul, you sold it to me and I sold mine to you. So if I die, you die. If you die, I die. As long as there is air in your lungs, there is air in mine. So don't pretend, Liam. You're not fooling anyone...not even yourself. So either let me go and kiss me, or kill us all and be done with it."

I froze. "All?"

The smile on her face broke out into a full grin and her hands slowly dropped to the small space between us, resting on her stomach.

"All," she repeated.

The anger I'd had, everything, was gone, and kissing her reminded me, again, that she was right. We were connected to each other. She was the air in my lungs, the blood in my veins; she was my whole life.

12:40 PM.

Placing my guns in the shoulder holsters at my sides and another at my ankle, I opened the door to my room only to find Fedel dressed, black gloves and all, waiting. He didn't need any order, he just followed me.

By now the house was already on lockdown. Silence permeated every corner until we stepped outside where a black Mercedes waited.

Taking a deep breath I reminded myself: she was alive. She was alive because I was alive.

"Keys." I held my hand out, already at the driver's door.

The only people who were going to die were the ones who fucking dared to cross me this way, to insult me this way. My wife was alive, and they were the dead ones.

FEDEL.

1:03 PM.

Over the years, I had watched over both of them, my bosses. With each passing year, I watched as they became more and more like each other. When I had first met Liam, I had thought of him as nothing more than a rabid dog, and for the most part, I was correct. He acted on pure instinct, he didn't wait and calculate, he killed not only to prove a point but because he got off on the power of it. It was like he was pissing on his territory and wanted the world to know.