Chapter 34 With God, All Things Are Possible
Briar Emrys Montverre was fashionably late.
Of course he was. Men with too much money and too little humility always were.
Desi sipped her iced latte and eyed Camila across the small iron table in front of her favorite coffee shop. Her assistant seemed uncharacteristically jumpy, fingers fidgeting with her straw, gaze darting up and down the street. Surely, she couldn’t be that smitten with the man?
The low, throaty purr of an engine answered her. A sleek black Aston Martin rolled to the curb, slipping into the spot beside Desi’s dented, sun-faded Camry, making it look like a forgotten relic from another world.
“There he is!” Camila’s voice leapt with a note of glee Desi had never heard from her before.
Desi rolled her eyes. Good grief.
Briar stepped out, the very picture of self-importance.
Brioni suit tailored to perfection, hair artfully disheveled, the gleam of wealth in every strand.
He removed his Louis Vuitton sunglasses, greeted Camila with a kiss to the cheek, then—heaven help her—pulled a silk handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the seat before sitting down.
“I’m a lucky man,” he said, flashing his shark’s grin. “Coffee with two of the most beautiful women in Miami.”
Camila giggled and practically melted beside him. “Can I order you a coffee?”
He waved her off. “They don’t carry my brand.”
Desi nearly gagged.
“Well,” she said, setting her cup down with deliberate calm, “shall we get to business?”
His smile tightened, eyes sharpening. “I hear you found the Ring. Do you have it?”
“I do. Do you have the money?”
He reached into his jacket, drew out his phone, and with a few precise taps, turned the screen toward her.
$5,000,000.
Seven digits that could save her sister. Seven digits that could destroy everything else.
He withdrew the phone. “Once I have your account information,” he said smoothly, “I’ll press this button, and the money is yours.”
Desi inhaled slowly. “First, I need to know what’s your purpose for the Ring? What do you intend to do with it?”
He frowned. “As I told you, Miss Starr, it’s a family heirloom. Sentimental value.”
“Come now, Mr. Montverre. Nobody pays that kind of money for sentiment.”
A flicker passed through his gaze. Annoyance, perhaps, or calculation. “If you must know,” he said, leaning back, “the Ring has been in my family for centuries. My ancestor was a Knight Templar who found it on a crusade in Jerusalem.”
Desi’s brow arched. “Then how did it end up at the bottom of the sea?”
He studied her, suspicion curling his lips. “It was stolen from one of my ancestors by a pirate.”
She bit back a bitter laugh. More like he tried to steal it from a pirate, she wanted to say. Instead, she folded her arms. “I read up on the Ring, Briar. It’s rumored to hold power over the elements—wind, weather, even time itself.”
He gave a low chuckle. “Myths. Fantasies. The sort of tales bored scholars tell to feel important.”
“But it would explain the price you’re offering.”
Camila turned sharply, fury etching her features. “Desi, what are you doing? Just sell it! It’s a great deal.”
But everything within her screamed No! Caleb had risked his life rather than give the Ring to a Montverre. How could she defy him now? Besides, there was something in this man’s eyes, a look she’d seen in the marquis, more than a resemblance, something hungry and sinister.
Briar brushed an invisible crumb from the table, his gold cufflinks flashing in the sun.
“If the Ring truly could manipulate time,” he mused, “I’d go back to the moment before that pirate stole it.
After that, our family’s fortune collapsed.
For generations the Montverres lived in disgrace and ruin. ”
“Until you,” Desi said quietly.
He straightened his lapels, chin high. “Until I clawed my way back from the ashes, yes.”
Camila’s eyes shone. “Rags to riches,” she said. “Such a great story.”
Desi sipped her coffee and stared at the cars passing in the street.
If Briar went back in time and saved the marquis from losing the Ring, then maybe he would never pursue the Sentinel and Caleb would never die.
However, if the Montverres took possession of the Ring and used it for their own power and gain, the world she knew might never exist. History itself would unravel. And for the worse.
“The Ring?” Briar’s voice cut through her thoughts. He extended his hand, palm up.
Desi’s fingers brushed her pocket. The Ring’s warmth pulsed against her skin. “I’m having it cleaned,” she lied, forcing a casual tone.
His smile vanished, replaced by a quiet snarl.
Camila frowned at her. “Desi! Just go get it!”
Then, a whisper. Not heard, but felt.
I can heal her. Only believe.
Desi froze. Her breath caught. The words resonated through her soul, tender yet commanding. Her coffee cup trembled in her grasp.
Was that real?
Visions rose unbidden—Caleb’s crew, once fevered and dying, now whole again. A God who heard. A God who healed.
Trust Me.
“Desi?” Camila’s voice broke through the haze. “You okay?”
Desi blinked. “I—yeah.” She rose, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. “I’ll pick it up this afternoon and call you when I have it.”
Briar’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.
Desi turned away before they could see the tears that threatened to spill. She needed time. Time to think. Time to… maybe…pray.
Yet time was the one thing she didn’t have. At least, not in this world.
Desi found herself once again in the worst place on Earth—the hospital.
Death, despair, and sorrow prowled the sterile corridors like specters from hell itself.
The sharp scent of antiseptic clawed at her nostrils, mingling with the faint metallic tang of blood.
The hum and chirp of monitors accompanied the moans of the sick, the muted sobs of families clinging to hope.
She’d been one of them once.
Thirteen years ago, a frightened ten-year-old sitting beside her mother’s bed, begging Heaven for a miracle that never came. Heaven remained silent then—cold, unfeeling, remote—and it had left her and Daria alone in the world.
Now, she sat at her sister’s bedside, and the years collapsed into that same suffocating grief. Only this time, it wasn’t their mother dying, it was Daria, still so young, still too full of life to fade away.
The doctors came and went like solemn ghosts, scribbling notes, murmuring words she no longer heard. She’d stopped asking. She didn’t need their platitudes or pitying eyes. She could read the truth in the hollow curve of Daria’s cheeks and the dull rhythm of the monitors.
From the narrow window, the sun slanted low, its dying light struggling to pierce the gloom. But it wasn’t working. With each passing minute, each blip of Daria’s heart, each faint puff of her breath, a despair as thick and dark as oil seeped through Desi’s soul.
She sank into the chair, numb, and pulled the Ring from her pocket. She’d taken a chance on touching it—had to test it before she allowed Briar to hold it, before it would send him vanishing into the past. But no, she was outside the reach of the portal. Which meant she could deliver it safely.
If she could bring herself to give it to the creep.
The amber gem pulsed warm against her palm, alive, somehow, like it remembered where it came from. Like it remembered him.
Caleb.
The name seared through her like a hot blade, reopening the wound that never healed.
She closed her hand around the relic. Her breath hitched. She lowered her head, the weight of years pressing on her shoulders. She hadn’t prayed since the day her mother died. Hadn’t spoken to God since Heaven’s silence broke her heart.
But now, what else was left?
“God,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “If You’re up there… I could use a little help. I don’t know what to do. From what I’ve seen—” She swallowed hard. “I guess You’re real. Caleb believes in You. Maybe I should too.”
A warmth brushed over her, not from the sunlight, but something deeper, gentler. It washed through her like a tropical tide, sweeping back the cold. She looked up quickly, heart pounding, expecting someone behind her.
No one.
“Is that You, God?” she breathed.
And then—
Daughter.
The single word shone in her soul, bright and sure as a lighthouse beam.
Tears blurred her vision. “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. I guess I’ve been a little mad at You. Forgive me?”
I do.
A small laugh escaped her. “Really? That easy?”
That easy. If you trust Me now.
The voice wasn’t in her ears, it was in her spirit, louder than every beep and hiss around her. And somehow, she knew it wasn’t imagination.
“Why did you take my parents? Why did you leave me alone?”
I have always been with you.
The words wrapped around her, warming, soothing. And she knew they were true.
Then came another whisper, sharp and cold as a serpent’s breath. Use the Ring. It can heal her.
Desi froze. The tone was wrong—acidic, slick, crawling beneath her skin. Her fingers tightened around the relic. Maybe the Ring could heal, but it carried a curse. She’d seen enough to know that every miracle exacted a price.
Trust Me.
The warmth returned, tender, persuasive.
She slipped the Ring back in her pocket and gripped her sister’s cold, frail hand again, afraid to squeeze, lest it crumble in her grip. “Okay, God… Jesus… You win. I believe in You. I give You my life.” Her throat constricted. “Just please, please heal my sister.”
Light poured into the room, not from the window, but from everywhere. The gloom lifted as though someone had torn back the veil between heaven and earth. It seeped into her chest, her bones, her very breath.
Desi pressed a trembling kiss to her sister’s fingers. She had no idea how to pray for healing. Maybe she should repeat what Caleb had said. Rising, she drew a deep breath, already feeling silly. She laid her hand on Daria’s side where her failing kidneys rested.