Chapter 69
Mallory Plantation—Rick
A dull ache dragged Rick awake before his eyes opened.
Pain pressed down across his chest and ribs, a heavy blanket that left him breathless.
His mouth tasted metallic and bitter. When he finally blinked, he had to focus through double vision until the blur sharpened into a figure sitting beside the bed—Alistair, light glinting off his glasses.
The moment Rick stirred, he asked, “How do you feel?” His expression was drawn tight, pensive, the muscles around his eyes etched with worry.
Rick tried to speak and only managed a rasp that scraped the back of his throat. “Like shit.” The words cracked like dry wood.
A low grunt came from the other side of the bed.
Elliott stood there—arms folded, expression caught somewhere between concern and fury.
His jaw looked like it had been grinding for hours.
“No wonder. Ye’ve got a concussion, three broken ribs, a knife wound on yer arm, more bruises than I’ve ever seen on a living man, and blood in yer urine,” he said in a clipped tone that carried no room for argument. “Did I miss anything, Isabella?”
“You forgot the sprained wrist and the torn ligament in his knee,” Isabella replied without looking up from the chart. Her voice was soft but firm.
Rick grimaced, shifting slightly, and the movement sent a lightning bolt through his side. “The knee was already bad. You can’t count that one against me.”
“But I can,” Elliott said, one brow arching. “What the hell happened?”
Rick’s breath hitched. “I could ask you the same thing.” He made a weak gesture toward Alistair—every muscle in protest. “I went back to 1927 to save his sorry ass from a car crash—give him a second chance. Before we could talk again, Bowes and his thugs snuck in. All hell broke loose. The house turned into a goddamn battlefield. We fought. Hard. We won. We came home.”
Alistair’s gaze was steady, though his hands were trembling faintly in his lap. “You left before I could give you an answer.”
Rick turned his head too quickly and instantly regretted it. Stars burst behind his eyelids. He blinked through the dizziness, pressing a trembling hand over his bandaged ribs. “Didn’t exactly have time for a farewell party.”
Alistair bent forward, elbows on his knees, fingers interlaced. “Looking at you now, I understand why you left.”
“When’d you realize we were gone?” Rick forced out. Even talking hurt, each breath scraping his lungs raw.
“The next morning,” Alistair said. “I came to tell you I couldn’t leave.
But the house was destroyed, with blood splattered across the floorboards.
I left the envelope of money I’d given you with the butler for repairs and new furniture.
Then I went home to tell Skye. After that, we heard Bowes and three of his men had vanished. We assumed you’d taken them.”
“Then how the hell did you end up here?”
“With Bowes gone,” Alistair said, exhaling slowly, “everything fell apart. The organization was headless. No one realized I’d spent months collecting evidence against them. When the threats stopped, we were safe.”
The room thickened with silence. The monitors hummed softly to the beat of Rick’s heartbeat. Finally, he rasped, “But how the hell did you get here?”
Alistair rubbed his temple. “Marcelle, Clay, and Remy arrived in the spring—with Archibald and Violet. Then Bastien, Kaitlyn, and Tony came from New York. It drew attention. Capone got jumpy. He locked them in his basement vault.” Alistair paused, eyes flicking to Elliott.
“Remy used his brooch—brought Skye and Capone’s safe straight to the house.
Then Archibald appeared, bleeding out on the floor.
Remy decided enough was enough. We escaped just as Capone’s men riddled the front windows with bullets. And here we are.”
Rick dragged a hand over his face, feeling the sting where bruises pressed against bone. “If you were already here, why the hell did Clay, Tavis, and I risk going back to 1927?”
“To deliver evidence,” Alistair said. “Documents that could tear down the Illuminati’s network in Chicago, Detroit, New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia—all of it.”
Rick frowned, trying to focus through the constant hum of pain. “You gave me a file. It’s in my duffel.”
Alistair nodded. “The documents you have are a combination of mine and Bowes’s. What you carried were names—clients, accounts, all traced back to black-market funds laundered through legitimate banks.”
“Money laundering.” The words landed heavy—bitter, but not surprising.
“Exactly,” Alistair said. “Bowes thought he could control everything—including me. He was wrong.”
“In my timeline, you died before Remy arrived in 1928.”
Before Alistair could reply, the door swished open. Charlotte swept in. “I’ve been listening,” she said softly. “And all I can say is—welcome to my world.”
Rick frowned through a fog of medication. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Charlotte moved closer. “Jack changed our history when the Union captured him and hanged him as a conspirator. Before he died, he believed he was the son of senators and the owner of Mallory Plantation. When that trapdoor opened, Jack changed everything. The mansion burned, the land was confiscated, and my branch of the family became schoolteachers in Richmond.”
Rick blinked slowly, trying to keep up through the haze. “But he didn’t die.”
“Only because I went back and stopped it,” Charlotte said softly. “But I did it as a teacher’s daughter saving a senator’s son. The history that followed had to bend to that truth.”
From across the room, a hoarse voice croaked, “Goddamn.” Clay was propped up in his own bed, face pallid, eyes glassy. “That’s it, isn’t it? The Mallory effect. History shifts the moment someone changes their fate.”
Charlotte nodded. “And for you three—it shifted when you left 1927. The timeline corrected itself the moment Bowes lost his chance to kill Alistair.”
Rick clenched a fist at his side, the IV line tightening against his arm. “Fuck.” The curse came out on an exhale—all frustration, all disbelief.
Charlotte gave him a thin smile. “Your timeline held, Rick. Your family, your life—are all intact.”
Rick let the silence hang. His head still swam, heart thudding in uneven beats that hurt with every expansion of his ribs. He turned his head, half-slurred now. “Alistair, did you tell Elliott everything?”
Elliott’s answer came first—calm, certain. “We heard it all, lad. Alistair and Skye didn’t know the true intent behind Bowes’s organization.”
Rick’s eyes drifted shut, tension slowly easing from his shoulders. “If you’re satisfied,” he said, exhaustion creeping into his voice, “that’s all I need to know.” He exhaled once, long and hollow, then surrendered to the dark.