Chapter Nine
Liis
By the time we circled back to the Longhouse, Olive seemed lighter.
She walked between Bodhi and me, shoulders drawn in, fingers twisting the hem of her sleeve, still processing more than she could reasonably sort through in a quarter mile and back of well-lit walkways and dirt road.
She turned to smile, brushing Stella’s chubby fingers where they poked from the sleeve of her zip-up hoodie.
Stella had grown fussy and would be ready for bed soon, but she snuggled against my chest during the walk, her weight familiar.
I’d learned quickly that emotional overload and physical exhaustion often looked the same.
Olive carried one. Stella carried the other.
“I can’t take it. She’s just so cute,” Olive said. “I feel like we haven’t been able to spend as much time together as we usually do, even though we’ve been together this whole time. Is it weird that I miss her?”
“Things will settle down and you can both get back into a routine. You’ll see.”
She nodded, grinned at Stella, and then looked forward, her small smile fading away. She stopped, breathing out. “I’m glad they’re here. I’ve missed them. But…”
“It’s a lot. I get it,” I said. “This is the hard part. It’ll just get easier from here.”
“You hope…”
“I know,” I said, leaning my head against hers.
Bodhi opened the door and waited for us to walk through the doorway.
Once inside, the Longhouse hummed with tension that clearly hadn’t dissipated in our absence.
If anything, it had only gotten worse. Conversations stalled when we entered the back room, and eyes tracked us without trying to hide it.
Too many volatile men in one space, even if they’d learned over the years to control the monsters lying dormant inside of them.
There were too many unspoken hierarchies, too much history compressed into a single room.
Bodhi guided Olive toward her spot on the sofa, positioning himself just close enough to be felt without crowding her.
“I’ve got her,” Thomas said, taking Stella.
She dozed off as soon as her head settled against his shoulder, a sleepy frown scrunching her face.
That small domestic ease made my chest tighten.
He had never planned on becoming a father and had never truly trusted himself with the role, yet it turned out he was remarkably good at it—decisive, protective, able to separate urgency from emotion.
His brothers didn’t know that man. They believed he’d acted without considering them when, in reality, he’d understood them all too well.
He knew that without grief clouding their judgment, they would have agreed with his conclusion.
But he also knew he didn’t have the time to wait for that clarity.
As a father first and an agent second, he understood what they could not—that the only viable choice would make him the enemy in his brothers’ eyes, and that he could live with that far more easily than he could stomach asking forgiveness for inaction.
“Walk with me,” he said, already moving.
I followed him into the main area of the Longhouse, down the narrow walkway between the rows of bunks, and out the door.
The desert had cooled quickly after sunset, the air carrying that same dry, metallic bite that I experienced at night on our back patio in Chinle, sharp enough to register with every breath.
Security lights cast long, pale halos across the packed ground, drawing moths and gnats into slow, relentless orbits.
Somewhere beyond the perimeter fence, an engine idled.
Closer in, boots scuffed softly, voices murmured, the compound settling into its nocturnal rhythm.
Thomas stood with his shoulders squared, holding Stella securely against his chest. He didn’t rush, but there was a tension in his posture, a rigidity that had been present since we got the word about Marymount and hadn’t dissipated.
He looked straight ahead, jaw set, eyes fixed forward as if the empty space before him required his full attention.
The night pressed in around us, quiet enough that every small sound felt amplified.
The hum of the lights, the faint chirr of insects, the soft brush of fabric when he adjusted his grip on Stella caught my attention, even though I knew they shouldn’t.
“How did it go?” I asked.
“Trenton and Taylor say they’re done with me. They never want to see me again after this,” he said, trying to keep the emotion from his voice.
He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t press.
I’d learned to recognize the way grief sat within my husband when it had nowhere to go.
Thomas was never explosive or loud when he was in pain.
He kept it contained, drawing it inward, the same way he approached a frustrating case.
On the surface, he remained calm. Beneath that, it edged into self-loathing.
To everyone else, even his brothers, it felt like indifference.
I was the only one who recognized it for what it was, and even then, it took me years to understand.
I could see that, while I was gone, whatever his brothers had said had impaled him deeper than anything else.
Not because their words were cruel, but because they were final, and Thomas believed them because he agreed.
As their older brother, he hated anyone who hurt them, even when that person was him.
Stella stirred once from beneath her blanket, then settled, her cheek warm against his shirt, oblivious to the broken heart beneath it.
He adjusted her without breaking stride, careful, practiced, the motion automatic.
Fatherhood had given him a place to put his hands when the rest of him had to stay still.
Thomas swayed and gently bounced Stella a few times, holding himself together by sheer will alone. She was already asleep, but he needed the movement, an outlet or a distraction, I wasn’t sure which. I watched as grief overwhelmed him while he refused to allow it to break the surface.
Unable to watch him suffer, I spoke, “One day, they’ll understand.”
He exhaled. “Not this time, Liis.”
I stepped even closer, resting my hand briefly against his forearm. “They need time, but they’ll come around.”
He nodded, but neither of us believed he meant it.
Inside, voices rose. Not quite shouting, but the sound of too many people talking at once, frustration stacking without release.
“We should go back in,” I said.
Thomas nodded again, pressing a kiss into Stella’s hair before opening the door.
We nodded to Camille and the children as we passed and then stepped into the back room. Everyone was on their feet. We caught Olive mid-sentence, in a conversation that had escalated in our absence, in a direction we never would have allowed.
“I just don’t know if that’s the right move,” Olive said. “I need more time to—”
“It’s settled, Ew,” Trenton said. “We’re leaving in the morning, and you’re coming with us.”
Thomas and I traded glances, then he handed Stella back to me. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. “That’s not happening, Trent.”
Trenton turned toward him. “You’re done deciding everything for everyone. That ship has sailed.”
“We’re in a fortified compound for a reason,” Thomas reminded him.
“This isn’t about comfort or feelings. It’s about security—about Olive’s life.
Yes, we’re a tough family, but hear me when I say this…
outside those gates, you can’t protect her.
You can’t. Not from an adversary operating at that level. ”
Travis scoffed, his eyes narrowing. “Have they gotten significantly more organized since I was involved?”
“Do you really think I brought her here to avoid a glorified bookie playing gangster?” Thomas said.
“This isn’t the same group that ran a sloppy drive-by, leaving two bodies behind in the open.
The second-gen Carlisis are older now. They’re more disciplined, better funded, and better connected.
When we took Benny out, the entire operation lost their internal compass and adapted by studying the Yakuza—an organization that’s far more methodical, patient, and ruthless than Benny ever was. ”
“So, we should’ve been on guard this whole time and you didn’t warn us?” Travis asked. “Tommy, what the fuck? You feel you had your reasons for Olive.” Travis was angry. “But we deserved to know the Carlisis had regrouped, and the second the Bureau knew we were in play.”
“You know you were protected in Illinois,” Thomas said, referring to our imbedded agent in Eakins, Lachlan Kostas. “We also had eyes in Colorado.”
Taylor turned to look at his wife. Falyn’s face drained of color, and she began to nervously fidget with the loose strands of her hair.
Thomas narrowed his eyes. “You knew, didn’t you?”
She froze, then glanced around with a small, confused smile. “Me?”
“Falyn,” Thomas warned.
Her shoulders fell, and then she nodded, the movement nearly imperceptible.
Taylor frowned, confused. “What did you know?”
“When did you realize we had eyes on you?” Thomas asked.
Falyn seemed to feel caught. “Deacon?” She scoffed. “I don’t know. A while ago.”
Thomas frowned. “He failed to brief me on that.”
“What’s he talking about?” Taylor turned to Falyn, then back to Thomas, his gaze hardening. “What the fuck are you talking about? Who’s Deacon? Is he the guy—”
Falyn began to scramble, touching Taylor’s arm.
“My father learned about corruption of state officials getting kickbacks from the Carlisis. He was going to blow it wide open. The Carlisis looked into family they could target; they found me. That led them to you, to your family, then Olive. I was so stupid… so incredibly stu—I posted pictures with her on social media. I even tagged her. They’d basically hit the lottery.
They could take out all their adversaries at once.
That’s when they came to Jim’s. And that’s when they shot Olive. ”