Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE MORNING ARRIVED WITHOUT ceremony. There was no birdsong or gentle easing into daylight.
Nothing but gray light pressing in through the trees and the faint scent of pine mixed with damp earth filtering through cracked windows.
Elvis had been awake long before the sun began climbing, his body trained to rise with the threat of uncertainty rather than rest.
He moved through the cabin in silence, checking sightlines and testing window locks again, just to make sure everything was tight.
He adjusted the angle of a motion sensor Blaze had installed when he arrived early that morning.
Abe was already outside, pacing the perimeter with a rifle slung over one shoulder, his posture loose but alert, showing his years of training and being out there in the heat of it.
Inside the cabin, the air felt tight, however.
Blaze had arrived before the sun had peeked through the trees to the east and now sat at the small dining table, laptop open, fingers flying across the keyboard while Delaney leaned over his shoulder.
On the screen, lines of code flickered in white against black, numbers and letters that meant nothing but gibberish to Elvis.
Another monitor showed archived public records, corporate registrations, buried property filings, everything they needed to bring Julia Moretti back to life.
And they were careful, placing her far away from the rest of her family so there would be no accidents.
Elvis paused in the doorway to the kitchen and watched her without meaning to. But how could he not? Even with all the promises she had made, he couldn’t deny that somewhere buried deep in his gut was the genuine fear she wouldn’t be there when he turned around.
She wore her hair tied back and one of his shirts, with the sleeves pushed to her elbows.
The collar had slipped low enough to expose the slope of her neck, stirring feelings inside him he didn’t need stirred right then.
Instead, he focused on the curve of concentration in her brow and the quiet resolve in the way she held her mouth.
He tightened his grip on the cleaning cloth in his hand, once again wondering if she had made the wrong decision.
Not for the first time, he wondered if he shouldn’t shut the whole damn thing down before they got any farther.
He admired her courage and determination, but damn, there was all kinds of ways this could go to hell. And fast.
He didn’t like that she was stepping back into the open now that he knew why she had stepped out of it. Didn’t like the idea that Matteo Serrano had men hunting her, just waiting for her name to light up in whatever hole he hid himself so he could gain points with his father.
But he understood it, having spent half his life doing the same thing, slipping into places he wasn’t supposed to be, making sure he left no footprint behind to point to him as he accomplished the objective someone higher up had given him, and then vanishing before anyone even knew he had been there.
Hell, he even respected it to some degree.
It showed she had guts. He just wanted to make sure those guts didn’t get her killed.
Across the room, Delaney glanced up at him, and their eyes held for half a second.
Then she looked away, and he blew out a slow breath, knowing there was no way he would ever talk her out of this.
Abe walked back inside a few seconds later. “Perimeter’s clean for now. Nothing out there but wildlife.”
Elvis gave a curt nod. “Thanks.”
Abe nodded as he made his way over to the coffeemaker after setting the rifle to the side. “Bit nippy outside.”
Blaze cleared his throat as he pointed to the monitor.
“I’m building a layered trail for you,” he said to Delaney.
“Corporate filings under your real name. Small consulting contracts, graduation records, change of addresses that make it look like you moved around a lot, that sort of thing. Enough digital noise to look real, but not so much as to scream bait.”
“Good,” Delaney said. “We know he’s going to check for sure.”
Elvis felt his jaw tighten as he crossed his arms over his chest. “He will if he’s good.”
“Oh, he’s good,” the marshal said. “And determined.”
“When he does, I’m hoping he simply thinks you got sloppy at some point,” Blaze said. “Like the length of time since you disappeared made you complacent and you slipped up.”
Later, when Blaze retreated to a corner with his laptop to talk to Melinda, and Abe took to the porch again, Donovan right behind him.
Elvis found himself alone in the living room with his thoughts and a half-cleaned handgun resting against his thigh.
Delaney had decided to take a shower, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
And as he stared into the flickering flames of the fire, a prom night, which seemed a lifetime ago, came back without warning.
Her dress had been a pale blue, nothing flashy or loud, carrying a simple elegance that made his breath catch.
When she moved, it caught the light, and he remembered the way she had looked at him in the driveway before he drove them to the dance, like there was nothing the two of them couldn’t do together.
They had fantasized about getting married, talked about how many kids they wanted to have, and where they wanted to land when college was over.
And it wasn’t Tupelo, Mississippi. He had even bought her a ring, which back then hid in his glove compartment, just waiting for the right moment.
He couldn’t afford anything expensive, so chose a simple gold band with a small diamond he had saved for by working two jobs during the summer.
The ring still rested in his top dresser drawer, a reminder to never let himself get too attached to someone.
He finished working on his handgun as he remembered how he had felt when she left, feeling that she chose to leave without even saying goodbye, throwing away their dreams, throwing him away.
He thought that for years, which is why he ran into life’s chaos full force. He just wanted to escape that feeling.
He swallowed hard and dragged the cloth down the barrel of the gun as he pushed the jagged memory away.
Across the room, he heard the bathroom door open as Delaney stepped out, wearing his shirt and some jeans thanks to Blaze bringing their luggage from the hotel, running a towel through her hair. The morning light lit her face, and for a moment, she looked younger, like she did back then.
Her entire family had shown guts standing with her mother when Carmela Moretti stood in a courtroom somewhere fifteen years ago and sent a criminal to prison. He thought about Delaney’s father, Vincent, sitting behind her, knowing that what came next would cost them everything.
And they had done it anyway.
Elvis knew that bravery didn’t always look like combat. Sometimes it looked like average people walking into a room knowing they would not walk out the same person.
“You’re staring at me.”
Her voice pulled him back to the present and out of his thoughts. He gave a slow bob of his head, a playful smile slipping across his face. “You’re something worth staring at.”
“You look like you’re about to storm a compound,” she added, nodding toward the weapon in his hands.
He glanced down at his handgun and shrugged. “Old habits. It helps calm me.”
She crossed the room toward him, the towel dangling in her hand at her side. She watched the way he handled the firearm, her gaze lingering as his hands went through the motions. “Have you always lived with this?” she asked.
He felt his brow pinch. “With what?”
“This.” She gestured vaguely toward his lap and the steel that rested there. “Violence. Always fighting.”
He didn’t answer right away, not really sure what to say.
“I’m sorry if that was too personal,” she said.
He took a slow breath. “It’s not that; it’s just...” He took another breath. “I become what I need to when the moment calls for it.”
She nodded and then moved to sit in the chair across from him. “You seem so different from what I saw in those pictures. You’re more serious, less… the party guy.”
He cocked a brow as he stared over at her, confusion filling him. “What pictures?”
She gave him a weak smile. “A few nights ago, I did a web search on you.” Her smile grew.
“Seemed like fair play since you ran one on me. Actually, two as it turns out. I saw everything you accomplished, your commendations, at least the ones they could print.” A grin he couldn’t explain twisted her lips.
“I also saw you with a wide range of ladies—smiling, drinking, laughing. They seemed to enjoy being with you, and you seemed ready to give them whatever they wanted.”
He pressed his lips together as he stared over at her. “That sounds like a judgment.”
She shrugged. “You have to admit it’s not nothing. It’s who you are, a different girl every night.”
He set the gun down on the towel and eased himself to his feet.
He ran his hand through his hair, doing his best to control his emotions.
“You don’t get it. I spent the first few years looking for you without so much as a breadcrumb to follow.
I called every number I had, pestered your extended family until they told me to leave them the hell alone.
I drove past your house every morning and night for months, just hoping to find a light on in a window or a note taped to the door.
” He shook his head, hands on his hips, as he looked over at her.
“The morning you left, I stopped looking for anything or anyone real, just wanting to numb the pain.”
She sat back in her chair, her mouth falling open.
“I didn’t know why you left,” he continued. “So I figured I wasn’t worth staying for. It hurt so damn much that I determined there was no way in hell I would ever make that mistake again. So yeah, wild nights became my world, but no serious connections. I don’t do connections.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” he agreed, his arms shaking. “It wasn’t fair at all.”
Silence stretched between them, thick with everything that could have been if life had dealt them a different hand.
He could see the pain in her eyes, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it.
She at least knew why their world had blown up.
“I did what I did to stop feeling anything, and you don’t get to judge me for that.
You’re the one who left me, remember? You built a company like Obsidian Analytics, but you couldn’t find a way to tell me you were alive. ”
“I couldn’t—”
“Bullshit,” he snapped, cutting her off. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe I loved you enough to go into hiding with you? You never even told me things were happening even before you left. I didn’t know someone tried to snatch you from our school or kept following you.”
“I wasn’t… I mean, you couldn’t… Bobby, I didn’t even know what was happening until it was over. I couldn’t ask that of you. It wouldn’t have been fair to ask you to give up everything for me.”
He took a couple of steps closer to her, his heart thrumming hard behind his ribs. “I would have done whatever it took to keep you in my life. You just never gave me a chance. You made that decision for me.”
“I didn’t even get to decide for myself.” Her breath hitched, and he could see tears pricking her eyes. “I never stopped loving you,” she whispered. “There’s been no one else.”
The words punched him in the heart, and he said not a word, not trusting himself to say the right thing.
Instead, he reached for her, taking her arm and pulling her to him. He leaned down and kissed her hard, his lips lingering on hers. It wasn’t hungry in the way their younger selves had been, but softer with more emotion than heat.
He slid his hands to her waist, pulling her even closer until her palms flattened against his chest. He felt her breath against his mouth, felt the tremor in her fingers.
“Bobby,” she murmured.
He closed his eyes at the sound of it. No one called him by his name anymore, always using his call sign. Coming from her, it sounded like something tender but powerful.
He backed her toward the wall near the window, one hand braced beside her head, the other sliding into her hair. The wind outside rattled the trees, as the world beyond the cabin fell away.
This wasn’t about reclaiming what they had lost. Now it was about choosing each other and putting the past behind them as they staked a claim to the future.
He slid his mouth from her lips to her jaw to her neck. Not frantic or desperate, even though he hungered for her like he had never hungered for anyone in his life.
No, he wanted to savor these kisses like a precious treasure.
She responded in kind, fingers curling into his shirt, pulling him closer as if she had finally decided to stop holding back.
He lifted her and carried her toward the bedroom, not with urgency or a care about the others nearby. He wanted her, needed her.
Craved her.
Inside, he locked the door and eased her down on the bed as though she were something fragile and powerful at the same time. He kissed her again, deeper this time, letting fifteen years of silence unravel between them.
There was no rush, no fear that she would vanish in the morning. He fell into the steady rhythm of breath and skin and rediscovered trust. He roamed his hands over her body, his lips over her heated flesh, and learned her all over again.
Not the girl in the blue dress, but the woman who had survived the chaos of a criminal world and came back to him.
And when they finally came together, it wasn’t a collision but an alignment of souls and bodies and hearts. It was a healing that they both needed.
Afterward, she rested against him, her head on his chest, fingers tracing the scar near his shoulder. “You’re different,” she whispered.
He kissed the side of her head. “I think we both are.”
“Do you regret who you became?”
He stared at the ceiling, mulling over her question. “No,” he said after a moment. “But I’m done living like I don’t have something to lose.”
She lifted her head. “You don’t.”
He cupped her cheek. “But I do,” he corrected with a soft whisper.
She nodded, her lips pressed into a soft smile, and he knew she understood, could see it in her eyes.
And in that quiet room, as the wind moved through the trees and Blaze’s keyboard clicked faintly in the other room, Elvis realized something he hadn’t allowed himself to admit before.
He had become a man built for war, but he was willing to build a life now. A softer life. For her. For the two of them.
And if Matteo thought he could reach into that life and take it—
He would learn exactly what kind of man Elvis Jenkins had become.