Previously…
– Racked with guilt, Matt admitted to his brother, Jake, how he manipulated Tori and Zane in order to get them to sign papers placing their unborn child for adoption.
– Brent planned to propose to Claire.
– Two men mistook Christian for Caleb and attacked him outside Molly’s house, but she came outside and saw what was happening.

With the sounds of their families chattering and laughing coming from the dining room down the hall, Jake Gray leads his brother toward the family room. An ESPN broadcast on the flatscreen TV lights up the otherwise dim space.

Matt lets out an exhausted sigh. “I just don’t know how I’m gonna do this. I lied to my own kid.”

“You…” Jake gestures aimlessly as he searches for words. “You guided her to the right decision. If you had to get a little creative with things, then so be it.”

“I keep telling myself that. Then I think, what if she’d gotten that text from Zane? What if I hadn’t deleted it? She might not have signed the papers.”

“And then she’d be stuck with some criminal boyfriend and a baby. Is that what you want for Tori?”

Matt has a response at the ready, but before he can get it out, another voice cuts in.

“What text?” Tori asks as she sits up and her head appears over the back of the couch.

Matt feels all the air leave the room as he attempts to process what is happening.

“Dad,” she demands. “What text from Zane?”

“I– I didn’t know you were in here,” Matt stammers.

“I was lying down.”

Matt’s eyes flash toward Jake, who looks just as helpless as his brother.

“It’s nothing,” he manages to say.

Tori slaps her palms down on the couch and then stands. She groans lightly as she maneuvers her heavily pregnant body around to remove the barrier between them.

“You said you deleted a text from Zane,” she says, the volume of her voice escalating rapidly. “And I wanna know what you meant.”

“Tori,” Jake cuts in shakily. “Your dad… he…”

“You knew about this!” Tori interrupts. “You knew!”

“What is everyone yelling about?” Mia Davich Gray calls as she hurries down the hall, followed closely by Sarah, Marcus, and Billy.

Tori sets her jaw and moves her glare from her father to her mother.

“Because I’m waiting for Dad to tell me what he did,” she says. “Do you know, Mom?”

Sarah pulls her head back and looks from Tori to Matt and back again. “What?”

Letting out a loud huff, Tori shakes her head. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised after you paid Zane off. Just tell me what you did!”

“I didn’t do anything,” Sarah says. She hurries to Matt’s side. “What’s she talking about?”

Matt feels his stomach drop and knows that he has no other choice.

“I did it ‘cause I wanted you to be okay,” he says. “To be happy.”

“Did what?” Tori asks, her eyes blazing with fury.

It takes him several seconds more to get the truth out.

“I saw your phone,” he says, swallowing hard. “And there was a text from Zane, about how he wanted to be with you — you and the baby, raise it together… and I…”

“You deleted it. You deleted it to get me to sign the papers.”

Matt hesitates as his breath catches in his throat.

“Matt,” Sarah says, grasping his arm.

“Fine,” he blurts out. “I did it. I did it!”

—–

Brent Taylor turns up the radio, though the Bruno Mars song playing barely registers as he drives along. His mind is too clouded by playing out the scene he is about to face.

A smile crosses his face as he slows the car at a stop sign. He wishes that he weren’t so nervous about tonight, but the fact that he is about to propose to Claire Fisher is almost surreal. He has waited so long to find something like this again.

Though he feels guilty for lying to his son — or at least, not coming clean when Christian could tell Brent was hiding something — he feels confident that it is for the greater good. He doesn’t want to tell the twins about the engagement until it is done, until it is actually an engagement and not an idea. They will be going off to college in a few years anyway, and they have known Claire their entire lives. He isn’t as if he is foisting some random woman on them as a stepmother, and furthermore, he doesn’t want to give the impression that they get to tell him whether or not he is allowed to propose.

“I’m proposing,” he mutters aloud, still in disbelief.

As he turns the car’s wheel again, he reaches a hand toward the pocket of his blazer — and freezes. His heart thumps harder as he realizes that he cannot feel the lump of the ring box anywhere in there.

“What the hell?” he says to himself as he reaches a hand into the pocket, which only confirms that it is now empty.

Panicked, he checks his mirrors and then swings the car back around.

—–

“Let go of him!” Molly Taylor shrieks as she races into her driveway. Overhead, the sunset has faded into a dark bluish-purple.

The two men who have grabbed her son stop at the sound and look toward Molly.

“Let my son go,” she says, her teeth gritted. Her entire body is shaking and her brain is short-circuiting. She has no idea who these two bearded men with ski caps are or what they want with Christian. All she understands is that she has to keep him safe.

She reaches for her cell phone and realizes that she left it inside the house.

The next thing she knows, one of the men has pulled something from his waist. Molly trembles as he raises the gun in her direction. She glances toward the road as a car travels by, but it glides on without interruption. She knows that the scene in the driveway probably isn’t even visible, given the low light and the cluster of evergreens at the front of the drive.

“Go back inside the house,” he says coldly.

She sucks in a sharp pull of the suddenly cool night air as she makes eye contact with Christian through the encroaching darkness. The fear in his eyes is so clear that, if she could move her limbs, she would lunge for him.

“Just let him go. Please,” she pleads. “He’s my son. He’s a boy. If this is about money–”

“I’m not Caleb,” Christian says, his voice cracking.

“This is Christian!” Molly screams, though she doesn’t even understand why that would matter.

“Quiet!” the man orders as he lifts the gun toward her again. The suddenness of his movement is enough to force another cry out of her — except that the emergence of two more headlights stops them all.

“Dad!” Christian shouts hoarsely as Brent pulls his car into the circular driveway.

—–

All heads focus on Matt. His mouth goes dry and  his body goes stiff. He almost feels that he could turn to dust and disappear right now, as ashamed as he is, but even that sad bit of relief won’t be granted to him.

Tori cradles her pregnant belly with both hands. “What did the text say?”

“I don’t remember,” he says. “Not really. It was, just, about how he thought you guys could get back together, raise your kid — the way you were going back and forth about the adoption, I knew–”

“That I wouldn’t choose the thing you and Mom had already decided I should do?” The young woman shakes her head in disgust at Sarah. “Are you sure this wasn’t your idea?”

“No!” Sarah exclaims. “I had no idea.”

Tori stares at her mother skeptically before turning her focus back to Matt. “That’s why you insisted on bringing the papers to Zane to sign. Because you didn’t want me to talk to him. Us actually communicating about our baby would’ve screwed up all your plans!”

“Why don’t you try and relax?” Mia cuts in. “I’ll get you some tea. It isn’t good for you to get this worked-up.”

“No offense, Aunt Mia, but shut the hell up,” Tori says.

Billy lets out an exaggerated gasp and looks up at Sarah.

“Why don’t you go help Aunt Mia with dessert?” she says.

“Great idea,” Mia says, immediately taking the little boy by the shoulders to direct him out of the room.

“Why is Tori yelling?” Billy asks as they disappear down the hallway.

“Just let me explain,” Matt tells Tori. “Gimme a minute. Zane’s a bad guy.

Fury emanates from her as she glowers at him. “I don’t want to listen to you. I don’t even want to look at you right now.” She whips out her iPhone. “I’m leaving.”

“Why don’t we all go home?” Sarah says.

“I’m not going anywhere with the two of you,” Tori says. “I’ll call an Uber.”

Marcus steps up to his cousin. “Hey. Let me take you home.”

She regards him with uncertainty for a long moment.

“You can yell at me if you want,” he says. “I won’t try to defend anyone. I barely even understand what’s going on.”

“Fine. Thanks, Marcus.” Her now-awkwardly shaped body lumbers right past her parents and out of the room. “Let’s go.”

“Thank you,” Sarah mouths to Marcus before he exits on his cousin’s heels. He nods to her and goes.

Aside from the continuous drone of ESPN, the room is silent for several seconds.

“I’ll give you guys some time,” Jake says before dipping out himself.

Finally alone, Sarah turns to face Matt.

“We should go home, too,” he says.

“Not yet. Give her some lead time,” Sarah replies. “The last thing she needs to do is blow up at us again. It’s not good for her or the baby.”

He drops his gaze to the carpet.

“So you really did it,” she says. “How? How could you think that was the right thing to do?”

—–

Molly sees Brent freeze for only a split-second inside the car before jumping out, leaving the engine running and the headlights on.

“King’s Bay Police!” he shouts, pulling his badge from inside his jacket.

“This your kid?” the man holding Christian roughly by the arms asks.

Brent hesitates. Molly is sure that he simply wanted them to think this was law enforcement interrupting, rather than someone with a personal stake, but Christian’s exclamation already gave that away.

“Just hand him over,” Brent says, every syllable measured.

The two intruders exchange a look.

“Nah,” the one with the gun says as he turns it toward Brent.

Molly looks again at Christian, his arms held behind his back and his face full of terror, and wants so badly to rush over and do anything she can to help him. But she has seen Brent in enough of these situations to know not to act without word from him, or she could screw everything up even worse. She keeps hoping that Brent will draw his own weapon, but she realizes that he must not have it on him; he looks as if he is dressed to go somewhere special for the night and probably assumed he wouldn’t need it.

“Take me instead,” Brent tells them. “I’m KBPD. Anything you want — I’ll be a lot more valuable to you than a high-schooler.”

“It’s gotta be him,” the man says, yanking back on Christian’s arms for effect.

“We have to get him to Black’s,” the other man replies in a husky whisper.

“I’m not Caleb,” Christian pleads.

“He’s not,” Molly says frantically. “This is our other son. Caleb’s twin.”

“He’s wearing his brother’s sweatshirt,” Brent adds. “Please. Just let him go.”

Again the two attackers turn to one another, having a silent conversation with their eyes. Then one points to Brent.

“Get over here,” he barks.

Brent stands firm. “Let Christian go.”

“Once we have you.” The man maintains his firm grip on the gun, continuing to aim it at Brent. “Come on.”

Hands in the air, Brent advances slowly. The man with the gun grabs his arm with his free hand.

“You said you’d let Christian go!” Molly shouts with desperation.

After another beat, the other man shoves Christian away.

“Run!” Brent screams, and suddenly he makes a move for the gun.

Christian hesitates, frozen in place.

“Run!” Molly repeats to him, and a moment later, Christian does, disappearing into the house.

“Moll! Go!” Brent yells.

She doesn’t know how she can leave her ex-husband, the father of her children, out here with these maniacs. She hopes that Christian has the sense to call 911. But before she can decide what to do, the unarmed man swings his leg behind Brent, delivering a hard blow to his knees.

Brent crumbles to the ground. Molly can see immediately that his prosthetic has come loose, the way his leg appears to shift unnaturally inside his slacks.

“Get up!” one of the men orders him.

Wincing, Brent nevertheless attempts to do just that. Molly watches him struggling to get up with only one leg on which to place his weight.

“Come on! We don’t have all day,” the man says.

Brent is working to regain his balance when the man laughs cruelly and kicks out his legs again. He drops like a sack of rocks.

“Brent!” Molly calls out. She watches in anguish as the men both kick Brent, and then she feels herself rushing over, focused only on helping him.

“Get back!” Brent tells her, but before she can act, the man without the gun rushes her and grabs her by the arms.

“Just take me!” she hears Brent yell, but his voice is muted suddenly by a painful thump on her head, and with a hard whoosh, everything descends into blackness.

END OF EPISODE 971

Will Molly and Brent survive their attack?
Can Christian summon the police in time?
Will Sarah and Tori be able to forgive Matt?
Discuss it all in the comments below!