Wyatt pulled out his phone to call 911. My father kicked it out of his hand, and the screen shattered against the doorway.

“Nobody here is calling anybody.”

Wyatt shoved him hard, and my father came at him like an animal. They went down into the rose bushes together. My mother and Melanie didn’t scream. They just watched, as if the whole thing had been on a schedule.

And lying there, I understood something that chilled me to the bone.

This wasn’t an impulse. This wasn’t a moment of madness.

Ever since Wyatt sold his construction company and became a millionaire, my family had been hunting him. First the dinners. Then the flattery. Then Melanie began turning up by coincidence at his gym, his office, his coffee shop, outside our apartment.