Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
AS THE DAY EASED its way toward night, the cabin began to feel smaller.
Not physically, of course. After all, the rooms were the same size, while the ceiling still sloped where the roofline dipped.
The kitchen still smelled faintly of coffee that had brewed too long and pine cleaner from where Abe mopped the floors “just to stay busy.”
Still, something inside her had expanded, and there was no more space for fear to stretch its slimy tendrils.
Donovan stood near the window with his phone in his hand, jaw tight, eyes flicking between her and Bobby. He had already warned her that this call would not be simple, and she knew well how her mother handled stress. She didn’t. Not well, that is.
It didn’t matter. She had been worried about her family since they had rushed her out of the casino’s hotel and even though the marshal had promised they were fine, she wouldn’t believe it until she heard it from them.
Now she stood at the edge of the kitchen table and pressed her palms flat against the wood. The grain dug into her skin, and she welcomed the pain of it, if only to remind her she was alive.
“Are they ready?” she asked.
Donovan nodded once, pushing himself off the wall as he held out the phone. “I still think this is a bad idea. Your mom’s the… nervous type, and my partner just got her calmed down.”
“I don’t care. I need to hear her voice. I’ll keep her calm.”
He nodded as he crossed the floor. “It’s a secure line, and Miles is with them.”
Her stomach rolled as she took the phone. She hadn’t spoken to her mother in weeks, Obsidian taking up so much of her time. She regretted that now. Having your life upended tended to do that to you, make you regret being too busy making a life to be with the people you should enjoy that life with.
“Laney!” Her mother’s voice came through the speaker in a whisper that carried more years than it should have.
Delaney closed her eyes at the sound of the nickname. “Mama.”
There was a sharp inhale on the other end, and then the sound of breath breaking apart.
“Are you safe?” her mother asked. “Miles told me you were safe, and that Donovan was with you, but that there was trouble at that summit thing you attended. He said—” Her mother’s words tangled.
“I’m safe,” Delaney said, though her hand had started to tremble. She gripped the edge of the table harder. “It was scary there for a moment, but everything’s fine. Donovan helped get me out of there.” She glanced over at Bobby. “And some others.”
“And Roman? Miles said he had got himself hurt, but he wouldn’t give us any details. Just that someone had breached your hotel, and that you were no longer considered low-risk.”
“He’s fine. I hear he’s back at the office by now.”
Her mother made a sound that was half prayer, half sob.
“We were so scared Laney. That man, Agent Miles Alvarez, he just showed up on our door early in the morning. The sun hadn’t even come up yet, Laney.
He’s the one who told us that something happened.
He told us we needed to be ready to hurry again.
Laney, I don’t want to move again. I like my neighbors. ”
Delaney closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I should’ve called sooner.”
“You don’t apologize for surviving,” her mother said, though her voice wavered.
“But when a marshal shows up on your doorstep after fifteen quiet years, it brings everything about that nightmare back.” She took a slow breath.
“Why is this happening again, Laney? It’s been so long. They should have forgotten about us.”
Delaney sighed as she looked over at Donovan. “Because I didn’t stay in my office where I belonged.”
“What do you mean? That makes no sense.”
“Do you remember Bobby Jenkins?” She glanced over at him, a smile automatically slipping across her lips.
“Bobby? What does he have to do with this?”
“He’s here. Or rather, he was in Biloxi, at the hotel. He spotted me and did a web search for Julia Moretti. That’s how the Serranos discovered who I really was.”
“But your old name isn’t connected to this one,” her mother said. “How did they find you?”
She looked over at Bobby, smiling still. “Because Bobby’s a determined guy. He didn’t believe me when I told him he was mistaken about who I was and did a search on Delaney Rhodes as well. Whoever was watching connected the two searches.”
“Wow, Bobby Jenkins,” her mother said. “You were so in love with him back then.”
Delaney pressed her lips together, fighting the surge of emotion in her chest.”I still am.”
She heard the ruffling of her mother covering the phone for a second, and then muffled voices. Her mother spoke to her father, her father speaking fast, and then the scrape of a chair.
When her mother came back, her voice was steadier, and Delaney could hear a smile in the woman’s tone. “He was good to you. I remember how you used to light up when he came over. You thought we didn’t notice. Your father just told me he always liked that Jenkins boy.”
Delaney gave a small, broken laugh. “Yeah, well, everything was much simpler back then.”
“Nothing is ever simple in this life, sweetie,” her mother said. “We all must play the cards we’re dealt. You should be thankful the Lord brought him back into your life.”
Across the room, Bobby stood rigid near the doorframe, watching her. He wasn’t even pretending not to listen as he stared over at her, concern etched on his features.
“So am I, Mama,” she said into the phone. “So am I.”
“And what does he say about what’s going on?” her mother asked.
Delaney felt the smile spread across her face. “He says it’s time to put an end to it, and I agree with him. I don’t know how yet, Mama, but somehow, we’re going to get these people off our backs. I’m not walking away from him again.”
“Nor should you,” her mother told her. “That was my only regret in all of this. That I had to pull you away from him.”
As time passed and Delaney had grown up, she had tried to tell herself it was only teenage foolishness, that it was never really meant to be. “He was the only thing in my life that ever felt real.”
“And he’s all right with it?”
Delaney’s gaze didn’t leave Elvis as she gave a slow bob of her head. “He’s perfectly all right with things.”
There was a pause, and then her mother asked the question that truly mattered. “What do you intend to do now?”
Delaney straightened, letting go of the table as she paced the narrow kitchen, the phone pressed tight against her ear. “I’m done running. I know that much.”
“Laney—”
“No,” she said, and there was more steel in her voice than she expected.
“I am done. Matteo Serrano wants to use me to earn brownie points with his father. He wants to find me in the hopes he can get to you, make an example for his old man before Alberto walks free. Well, I intend to use that to put an end to him.”
As she said it, she stared at Elvis, who simply stood there, studying her, his face unreadable.
“Laney, that is not how this works,” her mother said.
“Well, it is now.”
Her mother protested, but Delaney kept walking, each step carving certainty into her bones. She ignored the marshal’s looks as she passed him, knowing he would fight her on this as well.
“If I can get him,” she said, “ if I can put Matteo behind bars, then this ends. Not just for me, but for you and Papa too. For Anna.”
“You think he will walk into a trap?”
She stopped walking when she stood in front of Bobby, staring at him.
“I think I know men who know how to handle situations like this. Matteo doesn’t want money; he wants control.
He believes he’s finishing something his father started, and that will earn him something in his father’s eyes, which, by my guess, means he’s done something he doesn’t want his father to know about when he gets out. ”
Bobby cocked a brow at that last statement, pressing his lips into a thin line as he nodded.
The line went quiet for a moment, and then she heard her mother say, “You’re your father’s daughter, God help us.”
Delaney felt the tears before they blurred her vision.
“I’m tired of hiding, Mama. Tired of losing what’s dear to me.”
“I know, sweetie. And I’m proud of you. So very proud.”
The words landed in her chest with weight and warmth.
“Be careful,” her mother said. “And whatever you choose, just don’t lose yourself.”
“I won’t,” she promised. “To be honest, after all these years, I think I just found myself again.”
They ended the call with more quiet banter, nothing rushed or final as they caught up on what had happened in each other’s lives since they last talked.
When Delaney finally lowered the phone, handing it back to Donovan, her hands shook.
Bobby crossed the room in two strides, catching her before she realized she was swaying. He wrapped his arms around her waist, steady and warm.
“You all right?” he asked with a whisper.
She nodded, though tears slipped freely and tracked down her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. “I’m done hiding, like I told her. I want to end this and get my life back.”
He looked at her like he had just seen something shift inside of her and simply nodded. “Then we figure it out. I’ll call Blaze and get him out here. He’ll know the best way to make this happen.”
She nodded as she leaned into him, pressing her forehead to his chest. A part of her wondered if this was the right move, but then she realized if she wanted Bobby back in her life, it was the only move she had.
Outside the kitchen window, the trees stood quiet and watchful, their branches lifting and lowering in the wind like slow applause. Bobby kissed the top of her head and then stepped outside, already pulling his phone from his pocket.
She didn’t need to hear the call to know he had it all under control. He always did.
As she glanced up, she noticed Deke watching Bobby slip out the door before he shifted his attention to her.
He folded his arms, his jaw set and posture rigid in that way men adopted when they were trying to contain too many outcomes at once.
By the look on his face, she could already tell there was a lecture coming.
“What you’re thinking about doing is reckless,” he told her.
She gave a slow bob of her head, moving back over to the fire. “What I’m thinking about doing is ending this.”
He shifted on the arm of the couch, following her. “You’re talking about drawing Matteo out into the open.”
“That’s the plan.”
“You realize what that means, right?”
She lifted her head then, meeting his gaze. She already knew what he would tell her.
“If you leave the program, you step out from our protection,” he said. “I can’t help you, and all you’ve really done is put a giant target on your back the size of a fucking billboard.”
She straightened, turning to stare at the fire. “I kind of think that target’s already there.”
“As Delaney, yes, perhaps, but we can fix that. However, if you go through with this, there’s nothing I can do. You would have wasted everything for the past fifteen years.”
She stretched her arms out, the heat from the fire caressing her palms. “I’ve spent half my life reacting,” she said.
“Running when people told me to, changing names and cities, learning how to disappear without leaving footprints. Hell, I’ve built a tremendous company and I can’t even tell people it’s really me who built it.
I did everything right, Deke. And it still followed me. ”
He moved off the couch to stand beside her at the fire, his arms over his chest as he stared at her.
She didn’t give him a chance to speak, however. “They hurt Roman, smeared my name onto a mirror like it was some kind of trophy. They’ve ripped everything they could out of my family’s grasp, and I’m tired of it.”
Her voice didn’t rise so much as it hardened. “I don’t want protection anymore, Deke. I want resolution.”
She felt him studying her, searching for cracks in her determination.
He could look all he wanted. He wouldn’t find any.
He ran a hand through his hair, blowing out a sigh. “You don’t do this alone. And I’ll see what backup we can give you.”
“I doubt Bobby’d let me do it alone.”
The marshal nodded. “You won’t be able to predict how violent men act when cornered, so you’ll need to always plan for the worst.”
She shook her head. “You’re right, I won’t. But I understand systems and leverage. I understand how people behave when they think they’ve finally found what they’re hunting.”
“You’re making yourself bait, you know that, right?”
She nodded. “If that’s what it takes to end this, then I’m willing to do it.”
Outside, Bobby turned toward the cabin, phone still pressed to his ear, his eyes finding hers through the window. She held his gaze.
Whatever he was arranging, whatever lines he was moving behind the scenes, she knew one thing with certainty.
This time, she wasn’t waiting to be saved.