“Let go,” I said.
“I’m just asking you to cool down—”
“Let go of my wrist.”
He did not let go.
His other hand went for the front of the carrier.
He took hold of the strap over Scarlett’s small shoulder, and he pulled.
“Give me my daughter,” he said.
“I’ll show them I’m a family man.”
The carrier jerked.
Scarlett’s head bobbed, and her mouth opened, and she let out a thin, shocked wail.
Eloise began to cry in sympathy a half-second later.
I wrenched my arm back and curled my whole body around the babies, turning my shoulder into him like a wall.
“Don’t you touch her.”
My voice came out like something torn.
And a hand closed over Dillon’s forearm from behind, small and weathered and absolutely immovable.
My mother had not raised her voice once.
She did not raise it now.
