“Let her come,” I said. “She has no idea what I’m willing to give up to keep them safe.”

Part 4 — The Sanctuary of Stone

The private airfield outside Moab was a single strip of black asphalt carved into dark red sandstone. The sun was dropping behind the mesas when we touched down, and the air out here was a different substance entirely — crisp, dry, smelling of sagebrush and old rock, nothing like the metallic press of Las Vegas.

A matte-black SUV idled at the edge of the tarmac. I led Maren and the boys down the airstair into a desert wind that caught her hair and threw it across her face.

The twins looked tiny against the scale of the canyon walls, but the sheer openness of it seemed to loosen something in their small shoulders.

“Where are we?” Noah asked, his hand slipping into mine without hesitation.

I looked down at him and felt a real smile break through for the first time in what felt like years.