I heard the front door to the cabin open and close. David heard it too and pulled a knife out of his pocket and pressed it to my neck while I was cornered against the side of the house.

“Lisette?” Michael’s voice called as he walked out through the open back door and into the garden.

He froze when he saw David with the knife at my throat.

Adam and Rob came out behind him and Michael put his hand up to stop them from coming any closer or doing anything that would cause David to react and hurt me.

“Lovely to see you all again,” David said with a taunting grin at the guys.

“Let her go,” Adam commanded at him.

I saw Rob reach for his gun, but I shook my head quickly.

“No,” I said as calmly as I could. “Don’t do anything, please. Just stay still.”

“Good girl,” David chastised.

I want to kill him myself.

“What do you want, David?” Michael asked him. I could see Michael’s clenched fists and begged him with my eyes to stay put. I couldn’t bear to watch David plunge his knife into anyone’s chest or slit their throats.

I couldn’t deal with any more death.

“I want my business back,” David seethed. “And my school. All of my power and wealth. Do you happen to have any of that around here?” he said as he pretended to look around. “I suppose you don’t. So, in that case, I’ll just be taking Lisette.”

“Over my dead body,” Michael growled.

“That can absolutely be arranged,” David said.

I’d had enough of the murder, and the corruption, and the hate. I had spent years of my life trying to avenge my mother’s death by engaging in the same sort of things that got her killed to begin with and none of it worked. The hole just kept getting deeper. And even now, here in this peaceful and remote place where I finally thought we could leave it all behind and start over; it has followed me again. I was doing something wrong and something had to change.

A butterfly flew up from the garden and landed on the shiny silver end of the knife that David held in his hands. He looked at it for a second and I saw something in his eyes that I hadn’t ever seen before. And for a split second, I had to question what I was looking at before the word punched me in the gut.

Remorse.

I saw remorse behind David’s eyes.

I decided to do something absolutely crazy right then. Something that I knew all three men would be completely against and that David would be mistrusting and shocked by. I had tried everything else and this was just so crazy that it would either work out or explode gloriously in one direction or the other.

I decided to do what my mother would have done.

“David,” I said as the butterfly flew away and he looked up at me. “I’m not going to fight with you anymore, and I’m not going to turn you in. None of us are.”

I heard Rob start to grumble something, but Michael shushed him.

“I feel sorry for you and I want to try to help you,” I said.

David’s mouth formed an angry pout. “I don’t need your pity,” he spat at me.

“Then I won’t give you pity,” I said with a calm shrug. But, the next part took everything I had to say. “I will give you forgiveness.”

I heard Adam whisper something like what the hell under his breath.

Still, I drew in an even breath and continued. “I would like to invite you to stay here, with us.”

“Not a chance in hell,” Michael said, abandoning his commitment to staying quiet.

“Michael, please,” I said. Then, I focused back on him. The man with the knife to my throat. “David, I want you to stay here with us. I want to understand what happened to you. My mother saw a redeeming quality in you, and I want to know what it was. I know you think you hate her and that you blame her for everything, but deep down inside I think you know that’s not true. You hate the fact that she wasn’t your mother. And I think you also hate the fact that she died. I think that you also might even hate the fact that she would be disappointed in you, after all the time that she spent trying to show you a better way to live. My mother tried to be the balance for the other part of your life that was awful. She thought she could help you, and now I want to try. If you’ll let me.”

David looked so disarmed and so surprised that his hand lowered the knife by just the tiniest amount from my neck.

“This is a trick,” he said as he shook his head. “You’re tricking me.”

“No,” I said as I slowly reached my hand up to put on his shoulder. “I’m not. I swear on my mother’s memory that I want to try to help you now.”

“After all that I’ve done? Everything I did to you? Even after Julian?”

The mention of Julian’s name stung. But it made this even more important to do. Julian’s life would not be honored by going back to the same horrible way that things were.

“Yes,” I said. “Even after all of that.”

“Lisette,” Michael said from the doorway. “What are you doing?”

“Fixing things,” I answered.

“Lisette, you can’t fix him,” Rob said. “He’s a murderer.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try,” I said.

Despite the very vocal protests and unease of the other guys, David was so shocked and so desperate that he actually agreed to stay. He set the knife down in the garden bed and awkwardly followed us into the house. He sat down on the couch and watched in a state of suspended disbelief as Rob and Adam put the wood into the fire. And as I sat across from David, I heard the guys murmuring amongst themselves.

So, when Michael got up and made his way into the kitchen, I followed.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Michael said as he started brewing yet another pot of coffee.

“I know you don’t,” I said.

“I don’t know how you could possibly think this would be a good idea either,” he said.

“I’m not quite sure that I do,” I said. “But it’s the idea that I want to try.”

Michael stood by me no matter what. I was beginning to see that very clearly now. When we walked out into the living room with a fresh pot of coffee and a tray full of coffee cups, he sat down across from David and stared at him intently.

“You can stay,” Michael said, much to the disgruntled disagreement from the other two men. “But, the three of us will be watching over Lisette at every minute. At the very first sign of any trouble, we’ll kill you. And trust me when I say that out here, without your hired security goons; you don’t stand a chance against us.”

David didn’t say anything. I don’t really think there was much to say to a warning like that. We all sat in the living room of the cottage and drank coffee in silence as everyone nervously eyed each other. This was a drastic thing that I had done, and it would require a drastic change of behavior.

“Do you remember the puzzles we used to build?” I asked David.