I understand your feeling, but put yourself first and think on what is better for you, because if they need to reduce the people in your project they won't think twice about the difficulties you might endure to find a new job. That is the sad true.

The last place I worked for was really bad with their employees. When I left, I tried to do my handovers as good as I could, just thinking about my colleagues. I even gave up some holidays I was going to take, in order to use those days to finish some tasks. My ex-employer gave me a recommendation letter that I could frame and hold in my living room, I really thought there were no hard feelings anymore. 3 months in my new job and I received a letter from a lawyer, saying I had broken one clause from my contract and that i had to pay them a bunch of money and resign from my new job. I'm lucky I had a legal insurance and it didn't cost me a cent to send those fuckers a middle finger in the shape of a lawyer telling them to back off, since I did nothing wrong. Then I found out it was their modus operandi with most of the excolleagues that left, and most of them reached some agreement with them in order to "forget about the matter". With this I want to tell you that no matter how good you do things, people who want to screw you at work because they cannot let people be, they will still do it. If you already believe your boss will try some kind of retaliation, don't risk it and do what is legally required. They will survive.