He’d turn on the lamp, put their sleeping son in her arms, and sit with her until the panic passed.

One afternoon, with Caleb on a blanket in the grass and the ocean breeze on the porch, Sabrina looked over at him. “Did you ever think about killing them yourself, that night at the ranch?”

Hayden didn’t lie. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He looked at his healthy son, then back at her. “Because your family had already turned everything into violence. I wasn’t going to let Caleb inherit that from me.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “Then we won.”