Chapter Fourteen
The world condensed to a single, terrifying point: Cassidy, standing.
Kade’s every instinct screamed at him to move, to pull her back, to put himself between her and the trembling barrel of that gun.
He was a soldier. His body was trained for this, hardwired to neutralize a threat, to protect.
But he was frozen, his hand still outstretched from where she had slipped from his grasp.
Any sudden movement from him, any aggressive action, and he knew Jacob’s panic could erupt into a tragedy that no one in this room would ever walk away from.
He could only watch. It was the most profound form of helplessness he had ever known.
“Jacob,” Cassidy’s voice cut through the ringing silence. It was calm. Impossibly, unbelievably calm. She didn’t shout. She didn’t plead. She just spoke, her tone even and steady, as if they were the only two people in the room. “My name is Cassie. We met the other day. At the hardware store.”
Jacob’s wild, terrified eyes focused on her.
Kade’s heart slammed against his ribs. The gun was now pointed at his wife—his Cassie—and there were fifteen feet of open space between them.
Too far to reach her in time if Jacob’s finger tightened on that trigger, and from where he was, even if he could retrieve his gun quickly, he simply didn’t have a kill shot, Cassie was in the way.
“I just want to talk,” Cassie continued, her voice remaining calm. “You must be tired. Would you like to sit down?”
The kid frowned and Kade would give anything to know exactly what he was thinking. “No,” he finally muttered.
“Okay.” Cassie stood perfectly still. “Have you had anything to eat today?”
Again, Jacob’s gaze narrowed before he once again shook his head.
“Are you hungry? I’m sure we can get some food sent in for you.”
“No.” This time there was no hesitation.
Cassie bobbed her head. “I heard about your sister Emily. I’m so, so sorry. I can’t imagine how scared you must be right now.”
His wife shifted slightly to her right and ignoring how his heart hammered against his ribs, he reassessed angles, recalculated the number of steps it would take to disarm the kid, weighed the risk of a ricochet off the marble floor.
The risks were still too damn high. The one person he wanted to save more than anything, was the one most likely to get hurt—or killed. Damn it.
“You don’t know anything about it.” Jacob’s voice seemed to thicken with emotion, his anger slipping.
“You’re right, I don’t,” she said, her voice softening even more.
“But I know what it’s like to feel like the whole world is against you.
To feel like you have to do something, anything, to fix a problem that’s just too big.
” She took a single, slow, deliberate step to the side, moving slightly away from the rest of the huddled group, drawing Jacob’s focus entirely onto her.
It was a tactical move, one Kade recognized with a jolt of astonishment. She was isolating the threat.
“You’re just trying to help your sister.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact, an acknowledgment of his motive that seemed to momentarily drain even more anger from his posture.
Her focus was entirely on Jacob. “This is a bad situation. But it doesn’t have to get worse.” She waved her hand to the huddled group of innocent bystanders. “What do you say if we let these other people go? They haven’t done anything, have they?”
Without hesitation the kid shook his head, then scanned the people as if only now realizing he and this idiot weren’t alone.
“Can we let them go?”
For just a split second, Kade thought he was going to agree, and then his back snapped straight and he shook his head. “No.”
“Okay.” Cassie nodded. “That’s okay if that makes you feel better. Do you feel better?”
Again, the kid hesitated, considering her words. Kade watched, mesmerized. She was actually connecting with this kid.
The kid’s gaze met hers. “I’ll feel better when Emily is better.”
“Of course you will.” Cassie’s stance remained calm, casual. “You love your sister.”
The kid just nodded. What Kade couldn’t decide was if they were making progress or not. He was, however, extremely grateful that the banking idiot who started this whole mess was clearly too petrified to open his mouth.
“That’s a nice bracelet,” her voice remained impossibly calm. “Did you make it?”
The question was so absurd, so completely out of left field that it had Jacob’s head snapping back before looking down at the worn leather bracelet on his wrist. “My sister did,” he mumbled, his voice barely a whisper. “For my birthday.”
“It’s beautiful.” Cassidy smiled ever so sweetly. “She’s very talented.”
Kade could feel the shift in the room. The air was still thick with terror, but something else was creeping in.
A thread of human connection, spun from a simple, unexpected question.
He was still coiled, still ready to move, but a part of his soldier’s brain watched her work with a sense of profound, disbelieving awe.
He was trained to end a fight. She was trying to prevent one from ever truly starting.
He could only pray she didn’t get herself killed in the process.
“Jacob.” Her voice was a soft, gentle murmur. “I know you’re trying to be strong for her. But you can’t help her from inside a jail cell. Let us help you. Let me help you.”
Any fool could see the conflict in the boy’s eyes, the war between desperation and the flicker of hope she was offering. The gun lowered, just an inch.
And then, in the distance, came the first, faint wail of an approaching siren. Jacob’s head snapped up, his eyes wide with fresh panic, the gun coming back up, trembling more violently than before.
“Listen, Jacob.” Cassie dared to take a step closer. “We don’t have much time. If you put the gun down now, before anyone else arrives, this can still be fixed.”
“Fixed how?” Suspicion crept back into his voice. “You can’t fix this.”
“Maybe not alone.” Still blocking a shot, she glanced briefly at Kade, then back to Jacob. “But the Sweet family has lived here for generations, they have connections. Resources. Let us help you and Emily.”
The gun wavered in Jacob’s hand. “Why would you help us?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Cassie said simply. “Because Emily deserves a chance. Because you deserve a chance.”
The siren grew louder. Jacob’s eyes darted toward the door, then back to Cassie. Panic flashed across his face. “They’re coming for me,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Cassie didn’t lie. “But what happens next is up to you.”
“It’s no use,” Jacob muttered, his arm straightening, the gun pointed directly and firmly at Cassie.
In that very instant, Kade knew the minute the doors flew open and the police barged in, that terrified kid was going to pull the trigger and there wasn’t a damn thing Kade could do about it.
Cassidy’s breath hitched, every muscle in her body screamed at her to dive for cover.
A perfect dark circle, a tiny terrifying void, the barrel of the gun was aimed directly at the center of her chest. And yet, she didn’t move.
Her gaze was locked with Jacob’s. His eyes didn’t reflect a killer’s rage, but a cornered animal’s pure, abject terror.
The sirens were closer now, their wails a rising, frantic scream.
Time seemed to slow, to stretch. Like a movie scene suddenly rolling in slow motion.
Everything came into strange, hyper-focused clarity: the frantic pounding of her own heart; the glint of the fluorescent lights on the gun’s slide; and Kade, a coiled, powerful presence only yards away, ready to launch himself into the path of a bullet meant for her.
With a certainty as absolute as the gun in Jacob’s hand, she knew she could not let that happen.
“Jacob,” she didn’t dare move, “do you know what Emily would say if she could see you right now?”
The question hung in the air between them. His eyes flickered with uncertainty. “She’d be scared,” he whispered finally. “Scared for me.”
“Yes, she would.” Cassie took a small, careful step forward. “She wouldn’t want this for you.” The sirens were louder now, maybe a block away. She had seconds, not minutes.
“I can’t face her if I’ve failed.” Jacob’s voice cracked.
“You haven’t failed her.” Cassie held his gaze. “Loving someone enough to risk everything for them—that’s never failure.”
His arm trembled, the gun wavering slightly.
“Emily needs her big brother,” she continued. “Not a memory, not a story about what happened to him. She needs you there, beside her, holding her hand. Every step of the way.”
The shrill, jarring ring of a telephone cut through the tension. It was the landline on the bank officer’s desk. It rang once. Twice. From outside, a new sound boomed through the thick glass of the bank doors. “Jacob Henderson, this is Sheriff Brody. Pick up the phone. Let’s talk about this.”
Jacob flinched, his head snapping toward the sound, his wild eyes darting between the door and the ringing phone. The gun wavered. This was the moment. He was losing control, caught between the external threat of the police and the internal storm of his own desperation.
“Jacob, look at me.” Cassidy’s voice cut through his panic, pulling his focus back to her. “The sheriff is a good man. He just wants to talk.” She took a single, slow step forward, making herself the sole focus. A tactical move. “You should answer it.”
“They’ll arrest me,” he whispered, his voice cracking.
“Yes.” She nodded. If she understood one thing about negotiating, it was that she could not lie to him.
Could not risk losing his trust. “They will. But what happens after that… we can work on that. Together. I promised I would help you, and I will. My husband,” the word felt solid, real on her tongue, “is a Sergeant First Class in the United States Army. He’ll help.
His family will help. They know lawyers.
Good lawyers.” Oh, how she hoped she wasn’t lying.
“And if you let me have that gun, he’ll make sure when the police come inside, they won’t hurt you.
It’s the only way, Jacob. One step at a time. ”
She saw the flicker of comprehension, the dawning realization of the forces arrayed against him.
“You have to put the gun down. Now.” She took a chance and extended her arm, palm open and up.
Nothing. At least he wasn’t pulling the trigger.
“Jacob. It’s the only way to help Emily. Do this for Emily.”
It was his sister’s name that did it. A ragged sob tore from his throat. Something in his face crumpled. The gun lowered, inch by inch. “I don’t know what to do,” he mumbled.
“Give me the gun,” she repeated. “And we’ll tell the police it’s over.”
For one breathless moment, the world balanced on a knife’s edge. Then, with a broken sob, Jacob placed the weapon in her outstretched palm. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”
Relief flooded through her. Extending her arm, she glanced at Kade. No words were needed. As Jacob fell into her arms sobbing, no longer an angry threat but a broken child, Kade took the gun, engaged the safety, set it on a desk far from people, and opened the doors to the street.
“It will be okay,” she murmured to the still sobbing teen.
Quickly, the sheriff and his officers came to her side, each one assessing the situation. “Anyone wounded?”
“No,” Cassie answered. “No, we’re all fine.”
Glancing around, the sheriff seemed confused. It took a moment for him to realize that the sobbing teen wasn’t a scared victim but the perpetrator of today’s hostage crisis. “Come with me, son.”
Jacob lifted his head from Cassie’s shoulder. Tired, questioning eyes met hers.
“Go on. It will be all right. You’ll see.”
Hands cuffed behind him, an officer escorted Jacob to a squad car while the EMTs tended to a profusely sweating investment banker.
And Kade appeared at her side, his arms wrapping around her, his face buried in her hair.
She clung to him, the scent of him—coffee, soap, and something uniquely Kade—filling her senses.
They stood like that for a long, silent moment.
When he finally pulled back, his hands came up to frame her face, his thumbs gently brushing at her cheek. His eyes, a raw storm of emotion—relief, fear, and something so powerful it stole the breath from her lungs. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”
“I’ll try not to make a habit of it.” She actually chuckled.
Shaking his head, the slightest of smiles touched his lips. “What am I going to do with you?” He leaned his forehead against hers, his own breath shaky. “All I could think, over and over on a never-ending loop, was what would I do without you.”
The confession, torn from him in the raw aftermath of terror, was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard. “Thank you.”
“Thank you?”
“For caring.”
Now he laughed. Not a hilarious how funny are you laugh, but more of a you’ve got to be kidding laugh. “Caring. Oh, Cassie. I don’t care about you, I love you. As in the till death do us part kind of love.”
“You… what?” She knew she was probably gaping like a landed trout.
His smile softened. “I love you, Mrs. Sweet. With everything in me. And if you’re willing, I’d like to see if maybe we can’t renegotiate our little deal.”
Her heart was racing faster than a thoroughbred at the Derby.
Could this all be a dream? Maybe any minute she was going to wake up and discover there was no hostage situation, no frazzled teen, no gun, no police, and no renegotiations.
Because right about now, she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than to renegotiate.
“Would it help—in the negotiations, that is—if I told you that I love you?”
A smile as wide as the Rio Grande took over his face. “What do you say we go home and find out?”