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In movies, there is inevitably a climactic scene where the hero confronts the villain. They exchange witty remarks. One begs for his life while the other refuses mercy. There is a fight—of course there is a fight—choreographed and predictable, where the hero takes a beating but ultimately ends up on top.

Because he is a hero, and heroes always win.

Victoria was through with heroics, not that she’d ever seen herself as a hero, but she wasn’t wholly a villain anymore either. She was somewhere in between, or a combination of both.

She could be both.

To survive this night, though, she had to be more.

“I looked for them, you know,” Teagan said, floating into the room with the knife still firmly gripped for attack. They rotated in a tentative circle, fighters waiting to see who would make the first move. “I thought for sure you were going to tell me you’d found them when I realized that you’d packed up Warren’s office. Five more minutes in the basement and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Meyers showing up was a bit of bad luck. Unfortunately, her luck’s about to run out, and mine’s just getting started.”

“Not if you go to jail.”

“Who says I’m going to jail?” Teagan asked, inching closer. Victoria retreated at the same pace, dancing a dangerous tango. “The only jumpsuit in my closet is that cute black one I stole from you last year. No one’s going to arrest us because we won’t get caught. We’re a team, and we’re going to be okay. As long as you give me the papers, everything is going to be fine.”

“We seem to have completely different definitions of ‘fine.’”

“I told you before: I don’t want to hurt you.”

Victoria motioned to the blood seeping through the sweatshirt. “I know what you said. I also know that you’re a skilled liar with a penchant for gaslighting and manipulation.”

“You’re doing it again,” Teagan sing-songed.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Fighting the inevitable is kind of your thing,” Teagan said. “I’m actually surprised you didn’t rebel against Dad when he made it clear he wanted you to join the family business. Completely out of character when you consider your general attitude toward authority figures trying to tell you what to do. We’re equals, though, aren’t we? And this is happening whether you like it or not.”

“Screw you.”

Teagan snorted. “Your husband did.”

Victoria groaned, rolling her eyes, ready to launch into a rebuttal. Teagan had to push the easy buttons. Low-hanging fruit and cheap shots, because apparently, she had no qualms about winning without dignity. A win was a win.

The comment served to distract her. Victoria was unprepared when Teagan ran full tilt in her direction, tackling her to the ground. The air rushed out of Victoria’s lungs with a whoompf. She struggled to reposition herself as Teagan straddled her. Her sister’s strength was surprising considering her size, but adrenaline worked in crazy ways, and Victoria was at a disadvantage.

Victoria grabbed Teagan’s wrist, blocking a deadly blow of the hunting knife.

“Stop fighting,” Teagan said, clawing at Victoria’s exposed skin. Teagan’s nails grated her cheeks and chin, but she scratched back, dragging red marks onto Teagan’s neck and jaw. A scuffle ensued, grunts and huffs of effort and pain. Elbows hit tender spots as the sisters vied for dominance.

Victoria kicked up, her back digging harder into the ground as she tried to knock Teagan off balance. But the angles were wrong and she had no surface to work with. She squeezed Teagan’s wrist harder, but she didn’t relinquish her hold on the knife.

Then an inadvertent knee kick to the kidney sent Teagan sprawling. In her haste to stop her fall, she tangled with Victoria, stumbling further and losing the knife. It skittered slowly across the floor toward the center of the room.

“Oh, you bitch,” Teagan moaned in pain.

Victoria scrambled, hands and knees clutching for purchase as she attempted to find her footing.

And the knife.

With a lunge, Victoria grabbed the knife and scurried forward. She’d spent as much time plotting Teagan’s death as any other normal sibling. In an abstract, unrealistic way. The knife’s handle, however, was cold and smooth, and as real as the heel that suddenly hit her lower back.

Victoria made an unholy squealing noise and wriggled like a butterfly stuck through with a collector’s pin. Teagan hummed and pushed down harder, crushing Victoria’s pelvis into the floor and kicking into her torso with the other foot.

Pain exploded in her ribs, but Victoria did not let go of the knife.

“I wanted us to be a team,” Teagan said, kicking at Victoria’s shoulder and then wrapping her fingers in her hair. She yanked hard, arching Victoria’s head back uncomfortably before slamming it forward into the ground.

Victoria yelped, her nose crunching and flooding with warmth. Tears clouded her vision, and a dull roar took up residence in her ears. She remembered the last hunting trip her father had taken. Blood had stained his clothes, his gloves. The folded brim of his ski cap. There’d been none of that in the hospital room after his stroke. Clean and white, any trace of his violence had been wiped away. How easy it had been to pretend that he was worthy of her troubles. That her life would work out because she’d believed in his words, in him.

“We’re too much alike,” Teagan said, releasing her hold. She stood akimbo over Victoria. “Destined to be alone. As much as we’d like to buy into the fantasy, we know that hell isn’t fire and brimstone, it’s other people. We work better solo.”

She came crashing down, her full weight ushering in the descent as she sat on Victoria’s lower back.

“Get off.” Victoria struggled, flailing backward in futile, wild arcs. She slashed blindly with the knife, but Teagan dodged her easily.

“Last chance,” she said. “Give me the papers. Better yet, give me the money.” Her face lightened in a moment of epiphany. “Warren had to have left you with a tidy sum.”

“No.” Victoria growled in frustration.

“No, he didn’t, or no, you won’t give it to me? Because from where I’m sitting, you don’t have grounds to negotiate.”

“No,” she repeated, pushing off the floor.

Teagan recovered quickly, using the upward motion to knock Victoria onto her aching back before plopping down on her stomach.

Victoria couldn’t breathe.

“I just had a brilliant thought,” Teagan sneered. “No spouse, no kids. Who gets everything when you die?” Her knees squeezed together, keeping Victoria locked in place as she ripped the knife from her hand. She slid the blade along Victoria’s collarbone, slowly applying pressure until searing pain sizzled into her brain.

Victoria screamed and bucked. Teagan rode it out, slicing a clean line into the meat of her left cheek until she could jerk away.

“I’ll comb through every centimeter of your shit until I find the papers. I’ll get Warren’s Cayman account and your estate too. This is really working out in my favor. Talk about serendipity, huh? Too good to kill a detective. Leave me the dirty work because you think you’re better than me. Let me tell you something, dear sister. Morals mean nothing if you’re not alive to use them. And when I line up the scalpel for my first nose job at my solo practice, I’ll press that blade in and think of you.”

She raised the knife higher and brought it down. The blade sank into Victoria’s stomach, to the right of her belly button.

Victoria shouted, the pain excruciating, like nothing she’d ever felt before. Burning and cold. Abrupt and demanding. She closed her eyes.

Whatever bright light they’d told her to expect at the end didn’t come. There were no angels or trumpets, no flashback reel of her life’s greatest moments. There was only the darkness of her eyelids and the certainty that she’d lost.

That, more than anything, filled her with regret.

She’d tried so hard to be everything that everyone had wanted her to be, but she hadn’t done enough to get the one thing she’d wanted for herself.

Too late, her mind whispered. Too little.

Teagan’s weight shifted, and the knife was yanked from her torso. She pictured herself as a fish on a hook, dangling from the line until some crusty old man in waders ripped out the jagged end. How it could hurt worse on the way out, she had no idea. Heat radiated from the wound. Sticky, wet material clung to her skin.

“Goodbye,” Teagan said, lifting the knife again.

A rush of warm air hit Victoria’s face, and she imagined the knife swinging through the air in its gleaming, sharpened glory.

She didn’t open her eyes.