Chapter 39 AVERY
AVERY
"Nick, no!"
The gun is cold against my temple. Nadiyah's arm is a vise around my ribs, and the rooftop gravel grinds beneath my shoes as my body strains toward him on instinct even though I don’t dare move.
He's willing to die for me. For our child.
The thought of it is beyond unbearable. Because I cannot save myself and lose him. I can't carry our baby into a world he's not in. The two things are the same thing. To me, they have always been the same thing.
A ragged sob escapes me. I want to shake my head, reject everything about his whole horrific situation, but the gun at my temple is a reminder that nothing I want matters right now.
Nadiyah inhales, her body a constant pressure against my back. I can hear the weight of her breathing, the shakiness of the air she expels next to my ear.
"No." There is finality in the word. No room for negotiation. "You have nothing to offer me," she tells Nick. "You don't get to control this."
"Nadiy—"
"Enough!" Her sharp response silences him.
His face collapses. I see the defeat in his face. I feel his desperate gambit collapse. The jaw he's been clenching goes slack, and his raised hands start to shake, nearly imperceptibly, but I see it. I know what this is doing to him.
“Enough,” Nadiyah says again. “You will not die today.”
Part of me is relieved—so relieved I nearly sob—because I couldn't bear to watch Nick die at the end of Nadiyah’s grief-driven madness any more than he can bear to see me here.
But she didn't wait all these months for an apology or a sacrifice. She already told me what she wants. I already know what I am to her.
And she wants him to feel what that helplessness tastes like.
Nadiyah's arm tightens around my torso, and then we're moving. Not toward Nick. Away from him. Sideways and backward, toward the edge of the rooftop, each step deliberate and unhurried.
Gravel crunches under our feet. I have no choice but to move with her. She’s the one propelling us, and I'm just cargo being dragged toward a destination I can feel getting closer with every step.
Nick surges forward. "No!" His voice roars across the distance. "Damn it—let her go!"
His plea has no effect at all. I stumble as she pulls me farther from him. The steady clamp of her arm around my ribs, the gun barrel cold at my temple, the relentless backward motion eating up the space between us and the drop.
The wind gusts harder as we near the edge. It pulls at my hair, whips it across my face. City sounds rise from below—constant traffic, a distant horn, the ordinary rhythm of any afternoon.
Nick is frozen in place, hands still raised, every muscle locked against the urge to charge forward.
The breadth of those shoulders, their strength I've curled against in sleep, pressed my mouth to in the dark, are rigid now with a restraint that looks like it's costing him everything.
One wrong move, one more wrong word, and Nadiyah might—
I can't finish the thought.
"Nadiyah, please." The words rise from somewhere desperate and instinctive. "Stop. Just… stop moving for a second. We can talk about this."
Her grip tightens. The movement doesn't slow.
"Stop." Nick's voice again, but different now. Quiet. Cracked. Breaking. "Nadiyah. Please."
Across the widening distance, his face changes.
Tears streak his cheeks.
My throat closes at the sight of his pain.
Emotion seizes behind my ribs so hard I can't breathe—a physical blow, delivered without contact.
Because I know this man's face in every expression it holds.
I have traced that jaw with my fingers, kissed those dark lashes, memorized the topography of him in the dark. And I have never seen this.
"You want me to beg?" His voice is raw, wrecked. "I will, Nadiyah. I'm fucking begging you. Don't do this to her. Please. Let Avery go."
His raised hands are trembling visibly now. His whole body vibrates with the effort of not doing what every instinct must be screaming at him to do.
The sound of him breaking hurts worse than any other pain I’ve known. The sob that rips out of me is beyond my control.
I feel Nadiyah's reaction before I hear it.
Her heart pounding against my back, her breathing going erratic and rapid.
She's not as controlled as she seemed. His raw grief has found something in her, has hit a vulnerable place beneath her resolve.
I can feel it through her body pressed to mine, the faint tremor running through the arm clamped around me.
But whatever cracked doesn't break.
"Did Omar beg you too?" Her voice is rough. Raw. The words aimed at Nick like weapons. "I'll bet he did. My proud man. I'll bet he pleaded with you to let him keep the business he built from nothing. But that didn't stop you, did it?"
She drags me another step backward. Toward the edge. The gun trembles against my temple. Just slightly, just enough for me to notice the unsteadiness.
Nick steps forward again. One more desperate step, hands still raised.
"Stay back!" Nadiyah shouts.
The gun presses harder against my skull. Every nerve in my body ignites. Nick freezes.
One wrong move. That's all it would take.
I can see the realization wash over him, desperate hope draining out, replaced by the bleak understanding that nothing he's said, nothing he's offered, has changed a thing. His eyes find mine across the impossible distance.
The look he gives me. God.
Regret. Apology. Love. Terror. A thousand things he can’t say out loud. A lifetime of promises we made to each other, all of them balanced on this moment.
I hold his gaze, trying to pour everything I’m feeling into that connection. I love you. I’m not giving up. We’re going to get through this somehow. We have to.
He drags his gaze from mine and looks at Nadiyah.
"Nadiyah, I swear to you, I wish I could change what happened that day." His voice is quieter now, stripped of everything but honesty. "I never intended… I never imagined things would go the way they did."
He pauses. When he speaks again, the words are barely more than a whisper carried on the wind.
"I know you won't believe me. But I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."
It’s not a tactic. It’s genuine remorse for something he can't undo. Nick, standing on a rooftop, openly acknowledging harm, apologizing without defense or justification.
But Nadiyah's grip doesn't loosen. Her breathing doesn't slow.
Regret isn't the currency she's trading in. Justice is. And nothing Nick says will ever feel like justice to her.
"You're sorry." She says the word like it's something rotten. "Sorry doesn't give me back the man I loved. Sorry doesn't give my son his father. Sorry doesn't undo eighteen months of watching you live your life while mine unraveled into nothing."
She stops short, inhaling deeply. "This ends today."
I can feel the crack in her resolve, emotion bleeding through, the months of grief and rage finally finding their outlet. But feeling things doesn't mean she'll stop. If anything, it means she's closer to the edge herself. Closer to finishing what she started before the weight of it breaks her.
Another drag backward. The edge of the rooftop is only a few feet behind us now.
Nick's face is ashen. He's too far away. Even if he charged, even if Nadiyah's finger didn't move on the trigger, there's no way he'd reach me in time.
His voice shifts. Harder now. Trying a different angle.
"Think about what happens next." He's fighting to steady himself, to find something—anything—that might break through.
"If you do this, if you hurt Avery, you won't get away with it.
The police are already coming. I have an armed security team minutes away.
You'll be arrested, Nadiyah. You'll spend the rest of your life in prison. "
I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to give her rational a reason to stop. Reminding her of the price she’ll pay. Instead, her body tenses against mine.
No. My stomach drops. He's just put her on a clock. A woman who's already made peace with killing someone doesn't fear prison. But she might rush toward the finish line if she thinks time is running out.
"Quiet!" Nadiyah's voice cuts sharp across the rooftop. "Stop talking."
"Why? Because I'm telling you things you don't want to hear? I'm only telling you the truth. You go through with this, and your life is over too."
"I don't care about my life!" The words tear out of her, furious and desperate. "I have to do this!"
She yanks me backward, faster now. A cry escapes me. Panic cresting as the open air yawns wider behind us with every step. The threat of consequences didn't slow her down. It sped her up.
And we're running out of rooftop.
I force myself to be calm. Force my voice to hold, even as my pulse hammers so hard I can feel it throbbing in my temples.
"Nick's right about one thing, Nadiyah." I speak carefully, reaching for the only thing that might still matter to her. "Think about Sami. What will it do to him if you're not around?"
I feel her breath catch against my back. No words. But she's hearing me.
"Prison isn't just a price you'll pay. It's a price your son pays too.
" My voice doesn't waver. I won't let it.
"He's so young, only four years old. He already lost his father.
If you do this, he loses his mother too—to a locked cell.
To visits behind glass. To growing up knowing his mother chose revenge over him. "
I keep pressing. Gentle. Relentless.
"And what about your mother? She tried to stop you earlier, didn't she? She pleaded with you not to do this. If you don't stop now, she loses her daughter. She raises your son alone, knowing she couldn't save you from yourself."
Against my temple, the gun shudders. Just slightly. Just enough for me to notice.
"All this will accomplish is more victims. More grief that never ends. Omar's death was a terrible thing, Nadiyah. Don't make it a legacy of destruction."
Something I’ve said is starting to reach her. I can feel it in the way her body is responding, the tremor in the gun, the raggedness of her breathing. The way her heartbeat against my back has gone erratic and racing.
The certainty is wavering.
Not enough. Not yet. But closer than anything else has gotten.
When Nadiyah speaks, her voice is thick. Strained. The words coming harder now. "I know the cost." A shuddering breath. "I must accept it. For Omar's memory. For justice."
Her grip tightens. Steadies as she pulls me nearer to the edge.
I'm running out of angles. Running out of time. Running out of words that might matter.
There's only one thing left I haven't said. The one truth I've guarded through every escalation, every step closer to the drop. The truth my hands have been shielding against my body without my even realizing it.
I don't weigh it. Don't calculate. The words simply come, wrenched out of me by something deeper than strategy, deeper than thought. The raw, animal refusal of a mother whose child is about to die with her.
"I'm pregnant."
Two words. They leave my body like something torn loose.
I don’t know if it will matter now, but I need her to know the breadth of what she’s doing. If I can appeal to the part of her I saw in the photos back at her apartment, maybe there’s still a small chance of reaching her.
"You won't only be killing me, Nadiyah. You'll be killing a child who hasn't even been born yet. An innocent life that has nothing to do with any of this."
I feel her whole body react—a violent flinch, the arm around my torso going rigid, the gun hand stuttering against my temple like she's been struck.
For one breathless second, the grip loosens.
I could move. Could twist away. Maybe I could—
Then it tightens again. Harder than before.
"No." The word is wrenched from her. "No. You're lying. You're lying to save yourself. I don't believe you."
"It's the truth." I keep my voice steady, even as my heart threatens to hammer through my sternum. "The other day at my fitting—you were there. Serena had to let out the bodice of my dress. Nadiyah, I'm seven weeks pregnant."
A sound escapes her—something between a gasp and a sob. Raw, wounded, a woman's grief colliding with a mother's horror. "It doesn't matter. It can't matter. That's not what I—"
She doesn't finish the sentence. Her breathing is ragged now, the careful control she's maintained finally cracking.
I can't see her face. But I can feel everything.
The tremor running through the arm clamped around my torso, the heat of her breath against my hair, the way she's shaking with something that goes beyond rage.
The pregnancy wasn't something she accounted for. Something in Nadiyah—the mother, the woman who carried her own child—has heard those words and can't dismiss them.
But feeling it doesn't mean she can be steered back from the edge.
When Nadiyah speaks, her voice is quiet. Almost gentle. The voice of someone who has already made peace with what comes next.
"I'm sorry." A breath. A whisper. "I can't stop now."