I raised my champagne glass to celebrate my perfect engagement, but the moment two little girls looked me in the eyes and called me Dad, everything I'd built began to crumble.

We spent the next two weeks going through every page of Abana’s files.

It was worse than she’d described.

Over the past ten years, Hale’s company had been responsible for twelve construction accidents that left workers permanently disabled. Three had died. Every single one had been covered up. Inspectors paid off. Reports falsified. Families bought off with tiny settlements and non-disclosure agreements.

He’d embezzled millions from his own company.

He’d bribed three city council members. Two state senators. Even a judge.

If this got out, it would be the biggest corruption scandal in Texas history.

My lawyer contacted the DA’s office. The public integrity unit. We gave them redacted copies of the worst files first. Enough to get them interested. Enough to get them to open a formal investigation.

Then we waited.

Hale didn’t know what was coming.

He was too busy giving interviews to the press, painting himself as the victim of a greedy con man who’d tried to cheat him out of his hard-earned money. He told anyone who’d listen that I was a deadbeat dad. A fraud. A criminal.

The trial date was set for three months later.

In the meantime, I tried to make things as normal as possible for the girls.

I took them to the zoo. To the aquarium. To the state fair, where Mia won a goldfish she named Sparkles and Lila ate so much cotton candy she threw up on the Ferris wheel.

Abana and I grew closer.

We stayed up late every night, going over files, planning our strategy, talking. Not about the lawsuit. Not about Hale. About everything else. Our favorite movies. The worst jobs we’d ever had. What we’d wanted to be when we grew up.

I told her about my dad. About how he’d left when I was five. About how I’d grown up so scared of being him that I’d run instead of trying.

She told me about her mom. About how she’d died of cancer when Abana was 16. About how she’d promised her mom she’d finish school and make something of herself.

One night, we were sitting on the couch after the girls were asleep. We were going through a stack of old accident reports. Abana’s head was resting on my shoulder. Her hair smelled like vanilla and the lavender shampoo she used.

I looked down at her.

For the first time in seven years, I admitted it to myself.

I was still in love with her.

I’d never stopped.

All those years I was running, all those women I’d dated, all that money I’d made—none of it had ever filled the hole she’d left when I walked out that night.

I was just about to say something. To tell her how I felt.

When her phone rang.

It was the hospital.

There’d been a massive car crash on the highway. All available nurses were needed. Now.

She stood up, already grabbing her scrubs.

“I have to go,” she said. “Can you stay with the girls? Just until morning? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Of course,” I said. “Go. Save lives. I’ve got this.”

She smiled. A quick, bright thing that made my heart flip.

She leaned down and kissed me.

Quick. Soft. On the cheek.

“Thank you,” she said.

Then she was gone.

I stood there for a long time, my hand on the spot where her lips had touched my skin.

I slept on the couch that night.

At 3:17 a.m., I woke up to the sound of glass breaking.

I sat up, heart hammering.

Someone was in the apartment.

I grabbed the baseball bat I kept by the door (I’d bought it after the first tabloid story came out) and crept down the hall to the girls’ room.

The door was open.

The window was wide open. The screen was lying on the floor outside.

Two men in black masks were standing over Lila’s bed.

One had his hand over her mouth. She was awake, her eyes wide with terror, too scared to make a sound.

The other was reaching for Mia.

I saw red.

I didn’t think. I just ran.

I swung the bat as hard as I could. It hit the first man square in the ribs. He grunted and fell to the floor, gasping for air.

The second man let go of Mia and turned toward me. He pulled a knife out of his pocket.

“Stay out of this, Voss,” he growled. “This doesn’t have to get ugly. Hale just wants to send a message. Give us the files and we walk away. No one gets hurt.”

Lila started crying.

Mia woke up. She saw the man with the knife and screamed.

That was the last straw.

I charged him.

He swung the knife. It sliced across my left arm. Pain shot through me. Blood started soaking through my shirt.

I didn’t stop.

I tackled him to the floor. I hit him again and again and again until the knife clattered out of his hand and he stopped moving.

The first man was already gone. He’d climbed out the window while I was fighting his partner.

I called 911.

I sat on the floor between the two beds, holding both girls while they cried. My arm was throbbing. Blood was dripping onto the carpet. But I didn’t care.

They were safe.

That was all that mattered.

The police arrived ten minutes later. The paramedics right behind them.

Abana got home just as they were loading the unconscious man into the back of an ambulance.

She ran into the apartment. She saw the blood. She saw the girls crying. She saw me sitting on the floor, my arm wrapped in a temporary bandage.

She ran to us and fell to her knees, wrapping all three of us in her arms.

“I’m so sorry,” she kept saying. “I’m so sorry I left. I should’ve been here. I should’ve—”

I kissed the top of her head.

“You’re here now,” I said. “And we’re all okay. That’s all that matters.”

The police told us later that the man we’d caught was a known enforcer for Hale. He’d done time for assault and armed robbery. He’d been released on parole six months earlier.

Hale had sent him.

He’d sent men to break into the apartment. To scare us. To take the files. Maybe worse.

He’d gone after my family.

That was his biggest mistake.

Because up until that night, I’d been fighting to win a lawsuit. To keep my money. To clear my name.