For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. The only sound in the room was the slow, rhythmic tick of the clock on the wall, steady and cruel, like a countdown.
"Dad…" Jasmine's voice cracked. "You don't have to do this."
Owen's finger hovered near the trigger, his expression unreadable. "You should've stayed quiet," he said flatly. "You should've stayed gone."
"I'm not afraid of you anymore," she whispered. "Not after everything you've taken from us."
Something dark flickered in his eyes, rage, maybe, or something colder. The faint tremor in his hand betrayed him, but the gun never wavered.
"I've never taken anything from you," Owen said, his voice low and trembling with restrained fury. "You being stupid is what made you lose everything."
Jasmine let out a shaky breath, blood trickling slowly down her temple where the glass had struck earlier. "If that's what you need to believe to sleep at night," she said, her tone faint but cutting, "then I pity you more than I hate you."
