The sound seemed to irritate Marcus.
“Stop crying!” he shouted toward the door.
Nathan’s voice snapped.
“Don’t yell at him.”
Marcus looked back at him.
There was a moment then, one of those suspended police moments where a room seems to narrow into a few possible outcomes. Marcus could comply. He could argue. He could run. He could fight. He could reach for something they had not yet seen. Nathan did not know which version was coming, but he saw the muscles in Marcus’s neck tighten and knew compliance was losing.
Jenna saw it too.
“Marcus,” she said, shifting slightly left, “nobody is taking your son from you tonight if you just calm down and talk to us.”
That was not a promise. It was a tactic.
Marcus did not take it.
“She turned him against me,” he said. “She thinks she can keep my boy from me and then cry to police.”
Nathan thought of Elena running down the sidewalk with a bat in one hand and red sauce across her shirt.
Cry to police.
That was how men like Marcus described survival when it inconvenienced them.
“We’re going to get Mateo out,” Nathan said.
Marcus’s eyes sharpened.
“No, you’re not.”
Then he moved.
Not toward them.
Toward the laundry room.
Nathan lunged.
“Stop!”
Marcus was closer, but Jenna had the better angle. She stepped in hard, cutting him off just before he reached the door. Marcus swung his shoulder, trying to shove past her. Nathan caught his left arm from behind and drove him into the hallway wall hard enough to knock a framed photo crooked but not hard enough to drop him fully.
Marcus fought.
Not with skill. With fury.
He twisted, cursed, drove an elbow back, almost caught Nathan in the cheek. Jenna grabbed his other wrist. Together, they forced him down toward the floor as he shouted, “That’s my son! That’s my son!”
“Stop resisting!” Jenna yelled.
Backup had not arrived yet.
The hallway was too narrow.
Mateo screamed from behind the laundry door.
Nathan felt Marcus’s body buck under him, felt the slippery panic of a domestic suspect who believes surrender means losing the fantasy of control. Marcus tried to push up with his knees. Jenna shifted her weight. Nathan got one handcuff on, then fought for the second wrist.
“Marcus, give me your hand!”
“No!”