Chapter 37 #3
She shook her head. “No—you can go back to work. That’s important.”
“You are too. Work will still be there without me.”
She smiled at me with her eyes. “More important that suing someone?”
“Much more,” I admitted.
She smiled again—this time with her lips. “Well, I’m okay now. Really. Lucia’s here, my mom’s here. This isn’t your mess to clean up.”
I glanced toward the door, hearing Lucia’s laughter filtering out from her grandmother’s room. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it, knowing exactly who was calling and exactly why I couldn’t stay here long.
Valentina’s eyes glanced down briefly and then back up.
“You should go,” she said gently, reading my hesitation. “I know how busy you are.”
“Busy” was putting it mildly.
But here I was, dropping everything to pick up Lucia from school, standing here in a hospital hallway talking quietly to Valentina, because her world was coming undone again, and the thought of her facing it alone felt unacceptable.
“When will I see you at home?” I asked gently.
She blew out a breath before saying, “Late. I’ll be here until seven—until my AA meeting.”
She didn’t give herself enough credit—she rarely did—but the fact she was still going to those meetings mattered more than she realized.
It would’ve been easier to quit, to skip them when nobody was watching or checking in.
But she was stubbornly showing up anyway, proving she was stronger than she allowed herself to believe.
“Good,” I whispered. “That’s good, Valentina.”
My phone vibrated again, insistent, almost frantic. Max wouldn’t call more than twice unless things were rapidly approaching disaster. I felt the familiar irritation building—at Sebastian, at Max, at the entire goddamn mess waiting for me—but I held it back.
“Go,” she insisted. “I’ll see you at home, lawyer.”
I lingered for another second, memorizing the look on her face: the small, stubborn tilt of her chin; the way she always faced down disaster like it owed her something.
The second I turned the corner, I pulled out my phone, already knowing exactly who’d be on the other end.
Max didn’t bother with a greeting. “We have a problem.”
“Of course we do,” I muttered dryly.
“Can you get to the office?”
“Give me twenty,” I said as I got into my car and slammed the door.
I hung up, tossing the phone onto the passenger seat, already knowing exactly how this would go.
Because “we have a problem” meant Max had a problem, which inevitably meant I had a much bigger one.
Usually something Max had let fester—something he should’ve handled weeks ago but hadn’t, and now it was my mess to clean up.
Again.
I thought about Valentina still at the hospital, probably annoyed about the mess with the grant. She was finally letting me in, finally looking at me like I wasn’t the worst decision she’d ever made. Moments like that mattered more than I wanted to admit.
Which meant whatever problem Max had waiting for me at the office would almost certainly threaten exactly that.
Because clearly, life had it out for me. One quiet moment with Valentina. Just one damn moment of calm before everything inevitably went to hell again.
I glanced at the rearview mirror, adjusting it back into the right position after I’d shifted it earlier to keep an eye on Lucia. The hospital shrank behind me as I accelerated down the road.
Max hadn’t said what it was. He never did.
He liked making me wait, keeping the details vague until I was there in front of him, forced to hear whatever bullshit crisis was unfolding.
Usually something he or Remy could’ve easily handled themselves if they weren’t determined to make my life as complicated as possible.
By the time I got to the office, I was already late.
Max shot me a look that told me exactly how he felt about my priorities lately.
The conference room was packed—Max at the head of the table, Remy leaning back in his chair, Mikhail studying me silently.
Even Sean was here, looking more bored than worried.
I dropped into my seat without a word.
Remy’s eyes locked on mine. “Glad you could join us,” he drawled, leaning back casually, not even bothering to hide his smirk.
“You gonna tell me what this is about?” I asked.
He slid a file across the table.
I flipped it open without waiting for Remy’s response. The second I saw Sebastian Callahan’s name across the top of the first page, irritation tightened my gut.
Fucking perfect.
Remy’s smirk faded slightly, but not enough to make me feel any better. “James Callahan landed in town yesterday. He’s putting pressure on the sheriff’s department. Word is, Sebastian could be out within twenty-four hours.”
I stared at him, my mind spinning. Weeks. Sebastian had been in custody for weeks, and I’d assumed the silence meant the situation was handled.
Stupid mistake. I should’ve known better.
“You’re telling me Sebastian Callahan’s still locked up?”
Remy raised an eyebrow. “You seem surprised.”
“Surprised you guys kept him locked up this long?” I snapped. “Yeah. Color me fucking surprised. Whose bright idea was that?”
Max leaned forward. “The precinct held him without bail. Racketeering suspicion. But James is here now, pushing buttons we didn’t anticipate.”
Sebastian wasn’t going to play nice anymore.
Hell, I wouldn’t if I’d been locked up for weeks over something like that.
It made sense now, why James had shown up.
Sebastian was probably pissed enough to have called him in personally—something I never would’ve thought he’d do.
He liked to handle his problems himself—always had—but I guess being locked in a cell changed things. Changed people.
Honestly, I should’ve pushed Max harder to let Sebastian out.
Keeping him overnight, fine. That was standard procedure, sending a message, a small power move to remind him who was boss.
But weeks? Weeks were personal. Weeks gave a man time to think.
To plan. To get angry enough to do something stupid—something like blow open the entire Castillo deal out of pure spite.
Sebastian knew about the Castillo Group.
Of course he did. He always managed to know too much.
Hell, he’d even asked me to work with him, and for a split second, I’d considered it.
Not because I wanted his money or his deals—God knows I didn’t need more blood on my hands—but because working with Sebastian might keep him quiet. Might keep him away from Valentina.
Valentina.
My gut twisted at the thought. Sebastian had made it clear he knew exactly what would hurt me the most, and he wouldn’t hesitate to pull that trigger—to tell her everything about who I really was, what I’d really done.
The kind of things you couldn’t explain away, no matter how good your intentions.
But I’d turned him down. I’d chosen to side with Max, thinking I was playing it safe. Thinking I was choosing the lesser of two evils.
Now it felt like I’d chosen wrong. Like maybe my loyalty was misplaced—or worse, selfish.
I should’ve just taken the damn deal, kept Sebastian quiet, and protected Valentina. But I hadn’t. I’d rolled the dice, and now the odds felt stacked against me.
Sebastian on his own was manageable. Dangerous, sure, but predictable in his own twisted way.
James, though? James didn’t bluff. Didn’t fuck around either.
He dealt in facts and consequences, and if he was in town, it was because he was here to clean up Sebastian’s mess.
That meant trouble. The kind that had me seriously considering all my worst options.
For a brief, fucked-up second, I considered pulling a Max—just putting a bullet in Sebastian’s head and calling it done.
But then what? James would know immediately.
Cade, the other Callahan brother, would follow.
One murder would quickly spiral into three, and bodies piling up wasn’t exactly subtle.
Besides, I wasn’t Max. I wasn’t going to solve my problems with a gun and call it justice.
I had enough blood on my hands without adding Sebastian Callahan’s to the mix, no matter how tempting it sounded.
Then there was Mikhail’s yacht. I’d thought about that too—more than once.
He’d hidden Sloane away from Giovanni, kept her safe and out of sight, out of reach.
It had worked for him, but I knew it wouldn’t work for me.
Valentina didn’t do well with orders, with being handled.
She’d fight back—hard. She’d demand answers—ones I couldn’t give without losing her entirely.
Because there was no explanation good enough to justify the lies I’d fed her.
Not one.
Fuck. It was a mess.
The Castillo deal was bad enough. Sebastian sniffing around it was inevitable but manageable if we played it smart.
But we hadn’t. Instead we’d locked him up, given him weeks to stew, and practically invited James into our back yard.
And now the whole thing was falling apart piece by goddamn piece, with me stuck in the center holding the bag.
Max and Remy stared at me, waiting. They always waited.
Always looked at me to clean up their shit, fix their mistakes.
And usually, I didn’t mind. Hell, usually I welcomed it.
Solving problems was my thing—had been since I was seventeen and learned the only way to survive was to stay two steps ahead of everyone else.
But now it was personal. Now Valentina was involved, and suddenly, every risk felt like it had doubled overnight. Keeping her safe was one thing. Keeping her ignorant of what kind of man she’d married—what kind of monster I could be when backed into a corner—was another thing entirely.
Max explained the rest of the situation to me. How James was pulling strings. How Sebastian could flip this around entirely.
I listened silently, my jaw so tight it felt like it might crack from the pressure.
Every word he spoke made my blood boil just a little bit hotter.
They’d sat on this for weeks—weeks—and never once thought it might be worth mentioning before James Callahan touched down and made himself everyone’s problem.
They’d thought they had it handled. Thought they had Sebastian cornered.
Fucking idiots.
“You realize this is exactly what I warned you about,” I finally said, trying to hold onto whatever remained of my rapidly fraying patience. “I told you to let him out. I told you holding him would only make this worse.”
Remy looked away, his usual confidence nowhere to be found.
He was probably already running through a dozen contingency plans in his head.
Mikhail just watched me silently, not saying a word, but I could see he understood.
He’d been here before, weighing the same choices, deciding how far he’d go to protect Sloane.
I thought I’d prepared for everything. Every scenario. Every possible complication. But somehow I’d underestimated how quickly this could spiral. And I fucking hated it—hated myself for not seeing it coming. Hated them even more for pushing us here.
“We don’t have time for this,” Remy said eagerly. “We need solutions, Marco, not—”
“I gave you solutions,” I interrupted angrily. “Weeks ago. You ignored them.” I stood abruptly, my chair scraping loudly across the floor. Everyone’s attention snapped to me instantly.
“Where the hell are you going?” Remy demanded as if I owed him some kind of explanation. As if the past few weeks hadn’t been one long, endless shit show caused entirely by his inability to listen the first time around.
“To fix the fucking mess you’ve created,” I argued. “I’m going to get Sebastian Callahan out of jail and pray he’s feeling charitable enough not to hold this against us.”
Remy opened his mouth ready to argue—probably to tell me I was overreacting, that we had options, some bullshit excuse to justify weeks of sitting around doing nothing—but I wasn’t interested. Not anymore.
I left the room without looking back.
They’d wasted enough of my time, enough of my patience.
Every second Sebastian spent locked up was another second closer to him deciding to light a match and burn everything to the ground out of pure spite.
I’d worked with him long enough to know exactly how he handled grudges, and right now, I was on the wrong side of his.