I went ice cold.
There it was. Not just greed. Not just desperation.
He hated us.
In my ear, through the hidden wire, I heard Detective Hightower say, “We’ve got enough. Move in.”
Suddenly the park changed shape.
The man with the hot-dog cart abandoned it.
The tourist couple stood up fast.
The father with the stroller reached inside his jacket for a badge.
They converged at once.
“Kwesi Vance,” one officer shouted, “you are under arrest.”
The look on Kwesi’s face ran through shock, fury, calculation, fear, and something like disbelief in under three seconds.
Then he ran.
He spun and took off across the park, knocking into people, vaulting a low bench, cutting toward the open walkway.
The officers chased him, but he had a head start—and then, impossibly, he doubled back straight toward me.
I didn’t have time to move.
He slammed into me, grabbed me around the shoulders, and yanked something from his waistband.
A knife.
The blade pressed against my throat.
“Nobody move!” he screamed. His voice was wild now, stripped raw. “Nobody moves, or I kill her!”
Everything stopped.
Detective Hightower stood ten feet away with both hands visible.
“Kwesi,” he said, calm and even, “you do not want to do this.”
“Yes, I do,” Kwesi snapped. “She ruined everything.”
The knife pressed harder. I felt a warm sting at my neck.
My mind flashed to Kenzo.
Watching.
He was watching all of this.
I could not let his last image of me be afraid.
So I spoke.
“You’re not going to do it,” I said.
His grip tightened. “Don’t tell me what I’m going to do.”
I forced myself to turn my face enough to look at him.
“You’re a coward,” I said quietly. “You always were. Cowards don’t kill while looking someone in the eye. They hire other people. And even then, you failed.”
Something flickered in him.
The blade trembled.
Then a shot cracked across the park.
Not fatal. Precise.
A police sniper somewhere above or beyond my line of sight hit his hand.
The knife flew from his grip.
Kwesi screamed.
And then officers were on him from every direction, dragging him down, pinning him, handcuffing him while he cursed and thrashed and bled onto the pavement.
My knees gave out.
Detective Hightower caught my arm before I hit the ground.
“It’s over,” he said.
But it didn’t feel over.
Nothing felt real as I watched them haul Kwesi toward a squad car while he twisted against the officers and screamed over his shoulder.
“This isn’t over, Ayira! You’ll pay! You hear me? You’ll pay!”
