Chapter 4 Marisol
MARISOL
The sound of a truck idling outside had become a regular part of my mornings.
A Lone Star SUV parked just down the block.
It sat there every day now, dark windows facing my front door, its presence both unsettling and strangely comforting.
Some mornings, I stood at the sink with my coffee and watched it through the window until the heat seeped out of my mug.
It was a reminder that nothing about our lives was normal anymore.
Lucas hated it. He stood at the counter in his hoodie and backpack, stabbing his fork into a piece of French toast like he was preventing it from jumping off his plate and attacking. His phone buzzed, and he flinched before shoving it face down on the table.
“I’m not a criminal,” he muttered.
“You’re not being treated like one,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “You’re being protected.”
“By strangers who drive me back and forth to school.”
“By professionals who make sure you come home,” I shot back, then softened when I saw the tension in his shoulders. “You know this isn’t a punishment.”
He didn’t answer right away. He just stared at the floor, jaw clenched, his fear hidden behind irritation. “I hate this,” he finally said.
“So do I,” I admitted. “But I hate the alternative more.”
The knock at the door made both of us jump, but I already knew who it was.
Caleb stood on my porch, hat in his hand, the morning sun catching in his hair. He looked too steady for the chaos we were living in, too grounded for the fear that followed us everywhere. And yet, he had become the one constant in all it.
“Morning,” he said.
Lucas rolled his eyes. “Do you ever sleep?”
A faint smile passed over his lips. “Sometimes. Not when your street’s quiet.”
That earned a reluctant snort.
Caleb turned to me. “He’s got an escort today. Same route. Same drop-off.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
He glanced at Lucas. “I’ll see you after school.”
Lucas hesitated, then nodded once.
I watched them walk out together, my brother slouching beside a man who carried himself with calm authority, and something inside my chest eased. At least we weren’t handling this alone.
Once Lucas was secured in the SUV with his own bodyguard, Caleb drove me to work again.
I didn’t argue.
The town rolled past the windshield in slow, familiar stretches… the bakery on Main with the pink awning… the feed store on the corner… the diner that still advertised pie by the slice. They were all places I’d driven by a thousand times without thinking. Now every one of them felt exposed.
I rested my hands in my lap and tried to keep them from shaking.
“You okay?” Caleb asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t sleep anymore. I check the locks three times before bed. I keep imagining someone standing in the yard. I keep thinking I hear a car outside.”
He glanced at me, his expression serious but gentle. “That’s fear.”
“That’s love,” I said. “It’s what fear feels like when you love someone more than yourself.”
He nodded. “You’re not weak because of it.”
“I feel weak.”
“You’re carrying more than most people ever have to.”
I didn’t expect him to understand, but the kindness in his voice nearly undid me.
There was something more to my strong and silent neighbor than he let on.
Maybe one of these days, after Lucas and I were safe and completely out of danger, I’d ask him about his past. Right now, surviving one day at a time was all I could manage.
At the hospital, I moved through my shift in a fog. I smiled at patients. I scheduled appointments. I answered phones. But my thoughts stayed locked on Lucas and the men who thought they could use him and the quiet cowboy across the street who refused to let them.
Every time the door opened, my heart jumped. When my phone rang just after lunch and Lucas’s name lit up the screen, my stomach dropped straight through the floor.
“Marisol,” he whispered. “They followed the SUV. They know I’m being watched. They said they’ll hurt you if I don’t finish the job.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know what to do.”
My hand shook as I pulled up his location on my phone. He was by a park on the outskirts of town. “Stay put, Lucas. I’m coming.”
I called Caleb as I ran for the exit.
“I know,” he said before I could speak. “Lone Star is sending a unit to you now. Do not leave the hospital.”
“I’m not waiting.”
“You are if you want to see your brother alive.”
I skidded to a stop just as a black SUV pulled up to the ambulance bay.
A man stepped out and flashed a badge. “Marisol Vega. You’re with us.”
I arrived to find my brother standing on the shoulder of the road, his face pale and drawn, his eyes wide with fear. Two Lone Star vehicles had blocked the sedan before it could reach him.
Caleb was already there and had one of the guys by the collar.
He held him there, his boots planted in the gravel, his teeth clenched so hard a muscle jumped along his jaw.
His hands shook with restraint, the kind that came from a man who knew exactly how much damage he could do.
He leaned in close and whispered something I couldn’t hear. But the other man’s face went white.
“You picked the wrong family,” Caleb said, his voice low and lethal. “And you just ran out of warnings.”
The man swallowed hard.
I felt it then… the fear… the safety… the heat that curled low in my stomach at the sight of him standing between us and the world.
Caleb released the guy with a shove and turned toward me. His eyes found mine. They were dark and dangerous, but I wasn’t scared of him. I nodded my thanks and ran to Lucas.
He broke the second he saw me. “I didn’t want them to use you. I tried to quit. I swear I tried.”
I held him while he shook, his arms wrapped tight around me like he was afraid I might disappear. Behind us, Caleb was already on the phone, issuing calm, clipped instructions that carried the weight of command.
When he finished, he looked at me. “We’re moving him tonight. He needs to be in a secure location. No more chances.”
I nodded because I didn’t know what else to do. There was no way out except to do what Caleb said. In a world where I couldn’t count on another living soul, I trusted him.
Back at the house, Lucas was locked in his room with Lone Star posted outside. The sight of armed men on my porch made my chest ache. It made everything feel too big, too dangerous, too far beyond the life I’d been trying to build for us.
I sat on the couch and stared at the wall. That was when my body finally caught up with everything that had happened.
I cried until my chest hurt. I cried for the boy I helped raise. I cried for the choices he never should have had to make. I cried for the life I was trying to hold together with sheer will.
“I can’t keep him safe,” I said. “I’m failing him.”
Caleb sat down next to me, close enough that our thighs touched. I could feel the warmth of his body through his jeans.
“You’re the only reason he’s still alive,” he said.
I turned toward him, my heart pounding.
He lifted a hand and brushed a tear from my cheek, his thumb lingering just a second longer than necessary. “You’re not weak,” he said. “You’re so brave, Marisol. You’ve been carrying this alone for too long.”
Something inside me cracked. I leaned into him before I could think better of it, my head resting against his shoulder, my fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. His arm came around me, careful and steady, holding me like he’d been doing it his whole life.
He didn’t rush me. Didn’t try to fix anything. Just stayed.
Eventually I pulled back, wiping my face. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be strong enough for him.”
“You already are,” Caleb said. “You just don’t see it.”
We moved into the kitchen without really talking about it. I poured two glasses of water with my hands shaking.
Caleb took them from me. “Sit down, Marisol. You need to rest.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re exhausted.”
He was right, but that didn’t mean I had to admit it. A deep fear I didn’t know I was capable of feeling lodged in my chest. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You won’t have to find out.” His hand came to my waist, and mine rose to his chest. The air between us tightened as he closed the distance.
The kiss was slow and careful, his mouth warm and sure against mine. For one perfect, paralyzing moment, I forgot about everything else.
Then he pulled away. His jaw was tight. His eyes dark. “This can’t happen.”
Outside, the Lone Star SUV idled at the curb. Inside, everything had changed. And nothing would ever be simple again.