Chapter 35
I remember fragments. The ambulance arriving. Police moving through Luther's house, taking photos. I remember the body bag coming in on a stretcher. Statements.
And the questions. Anton, Gabriel, Rio and I all somehow answered in perfect symphony without even making eye contact.
I went to GhostEye to report human trafficking.
Marcus killed Luther over the alliance.
Rio shot Marcus to protect me.
Somewhere between thinking about going back to Luther to allow more time for the trafficking case and wanting to save Rio, I realized that the only way Rio would come out the other end was for Luther to die.
I’d never be able to kill someone.
But my father could.
I needed him to come in, gun blazing, with no doubt in his mind that Luther was going down.
Despite knowing Luther is an evil man, emotions swirl inside me into a morally gray sludge. My text to Dad brought him to Luther’s. It caused Luther to lose his life.
I know Luther deserved to be taken down. I’m sure he would have sexually assaulted me for the rest of my life had we married. He would have happily profited from enslaving women. He would have spread more destruction across communities with addictive, destructive drugs.
But did he deserve to die?
I never knew love before Rio. I never knew its power or how it could blind a person to everything.
My feelings for Rio, after a lifetime of living in a dark vacuum, void of any affection, hit me like a freight train.
Before I met him, my heart was empty, and now even if I had a hundred hearts, they couldn’t contain how intense my need is to be with him.
Rio. His family, Echo Valley. I somehow teleported to a universe I never knew existed, and I couldn’t sacrifice my second chance at life. At love.
I couldn’t choose Luther‘s life over Rio’s.
That’s what it all came down to.
Now, we can only wait and see what happens on the legal end.
Rio insisted I go to the hospital to have a look at my neck. I didn't have the energy to argue. I needed my throat looked at. The marks Luther left were already darkening by the time we got there, and the doctor's face when she saw them told me everything I needed to know about how bad it looked.
I didn't want to be there because somewhere in that same building, Marcus Cross was having a bullet fished from his thigh. I didn't want to be the person identified as his daughter. I didn't want someone to see my name on the chart and to be asked if I was the next of kin.
But Rio said we had to go, and his tone told me my well-being was non-negotiable.
My own family never insisted on anything for my sake.
Rio stood just outside the curtain the entire time, close enough that I could feel his presence through the fabric.
That is what people do when they love you.
Anton drove us all home after. It was mostly silence, though not an uncomfortable one, more of an exhausted one. For most of the ride, I felt a combination of shock and numbness, as if I had poured every ounce of courage, wit and energy into making that all happen.
At some point, Rio's hand found mine across the backseat.
He didn't say anything. He just found my hand, held it, keeping his eyes on the road.
But I looked down at our hands for a moment.
I have spent so much of my life alone in cars. Driving away from things. Planning exits. Counting tips into a coat lining and telling myself that Wisconsin and freedom were waiting and that one day I'd get there.
I wasn't driving away from anything tonight.
I was going home.
When we arrive back at Rio's, Santi is on the couch with Theo, half asleep against his shoulder.
Owen is cross-legged on the floor watching the TV.
Kat sips tea next to him, her legs curled under herself on the sofa.
And on the large dog bed in the corner, Tina is curled up between Santi's Belgian Malinois and his toy poodle — all three of them a warm tangle of paws and ears, completely unconscious.
Tina soon lifts her head at the sound of the door, and her tail thumps when she sees me, but she doesn't bother to leave her cocoon. And honestly, that's the happiest thing that's happened today. My dog, finally fully relaxed, not needing me because there's comfort somewhere else.
I stop in the doorway and soak it all in.
I left this house tonight without telling anyone and I come back to this. A family closed ranks without being asked and made sure my dog was warm and fed and not alone.
Nobody called me to check if that was okay. Nobody waited to be invited. Someone along the way realized that Tina was alone and knew she wouldn’t want to be, so they came.
Standing here in this doorway, looking at the evidence of a loyalty and care I’ve never known, a warmth cracks open in my chest.
This is what loving people do.
Not the grand gestures. Not the declarations. Just this. Showing up. Sitting on someone's couch with a sleeping child on your shoulder so a dog doesn't have to be alone in an empty house.
Santi looks up and clocks the marks on my throat. His gaze instantly darkens. I swear I see the same ferocious thing in his eyes that's there in Rio's. These men don't fuck around with injustice.
They take it down with a bullet.
I cross the room and sit on the edge of the dog bed. I put my hand on Tina's small, warm back. She shifts in her sleep, pressing closer. Santi's Malinois lifts her head and regards me briefly before deciding I'm not interesting enough and goes back to sleep, too.
My throat nearly closes with the immense emotion that bubbles up seeing the only friend I’ve ever had so content.
This dog. This ridiculous, geriatric, partially blind dog who has been my whole family for years is sleeping peacefully between two other dogs in the house of a man I love.
I never even wished for my own happy ending, even as much as I did hers. I thought a lake house would be heaven for her, but now I see, she only wanted the same thing I did. A friend of her own. Someone to love.
In the same species.
Rio appears behind me and puts his hand on my shoulder. I lean into it, dropping my cheek to the back of his warm skin.
"We'll get out of your way," Santi says, already getting up, lifting a sleeping Theo with the ease of a man who has done it a thousand times. Owen scrambles up from the floor. Kat collects her jacket.
"You don't have to—" I start.
"We do," Santi says, reading the room and probably needing to get his boys to bed.
He stops beside Rio on the way out, and the two of them have one of those wordless exchanges that brothers have — a look passing between them that I can't fully read, but that lands clearly for them.
He squeezes Rio's shoulder once and they're gone. All except the dogs. I guess they figure they're comfortable and can find their way home tomorrow.
I watch the door close behind them, and I think about what it means to have people in your life you can speak to without speaking.
People who know the weight of what you're carrying without being told.
People who show up, stay and leave at exactly the right moment.
And they never make you explain any of it.
I grew up in a world full of people but I was always alone in it.
I don't want to be alone anymore.
I want this— the family that shows up, the dog sleeping between other dogs, the man standing behind me with his hand on my shoulder, the mountains outside the window, all of it — for the rest of my life.
"Sit," Rio gestures toward one of the couches. I happily let myself fall into the lush, overstuffed cushion. It envelops me like a hug.
He goes to the kitchen and moments later comes back with two mugs of tea. But the world isn't ready for us to be cozy yet.
Rio's phone rings just as he sits beside me. He pulls it from his pocket. "It's Enzo."
He answers it on speaker and drops it on the coffee table in front of us. "Tell me some good news."
Enzo jumps into it without preamble. "I called Murdock on your drive up to Sacramento, told her about Delilah's testimony, the passports, and some existing DEA surveillance on Iron Covenant's meth operation we managed to flag on the system. She was interested but said it wasn't enough."
My shoulders drop. Shit.
"I said I need good news, hermano," Rio says, looking at me.
“So impatient,” Enzo chides. “Thankfully, Anton called and updated us from Luther’s after everything went down.
Marcus taking out Luther? His arrest tonight?
That changed things and cracked it all open for investigation.
I called Murdock back, and she took it to a federal judge.
Trafficking, meth, murder. Warrant issued. "
I lean toward the phone sitting on the coffee table. "What does that mean for Beatriz and Isabel?”
He continues. “Both addresses will be under federal surveillance in a couple of hours. Visuals on our end suggest nothing has changed. I suspect with the boss in jail, decisions will be slow."
Rio watches me as we listen to the rest of Enzo’s news.
"Iron Covenant doesn't know the full picture yet. Without Marcus giving orders, nobody's making that call tonight. Hopefully, we’ll shut this all down really soon.”
Relief moves through Rio's expression. "Good," he says. "That's good."
"How are you, Delilah?" Enzo asks. "I wish we could have gotten there before you were hurt."
I sigh. “I think my plan was better."
“Tough as it was, I’ll give you that,” Enzo says. "Well, I'll leave you two alone. You must be exhausted. We’re heading back for a few hours of sleep, too. Tomorrow we’ll need to redo our work with legal timestamps."
He and Ava gave everything to this. To me. To women they'd never met.
"Thank you, Enzo. Thank you so much." Tears prick the corners of my eyes.
"Everyone has you to thank, Delilah. You’re the real hero. I just did my job,” he hangs up before I can protest again.
Rio and I settle into the couch. He wraps his arm around me, and I let myself sink into it.