37. Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
Margot rubs at her temple. “Ugh this fucking relay...”
“Keep chasing, please Margot.” I say.
My voice sounds calmer than I feel. Max’s hand finds my thigh under the table and gives it a small squeeze. A small touch, a quiet anchor. I look at the clock again. Fifty-eight minutes. And counting.
The conversation shifts as the minutes fall away.
Elias pulls up the map on the main screen, zooming in on the cluster of coordinates near my childhood neighborhood.
Margot paces now, tablet in hand, talking to herself about signal interference and dead zones.
Riot points out roads we could take if this turns into an extraction.
I stand at the edge of the table and force myself to think. Not panic. Think. “When that clock hits zero, we roll,” I say. “Riot, you drive point. Margot and Elias, you handle comms. We go in quiet. We get them out.”
They all nod. No one argues. That’s what I love about this family.
When things break, they move. The door opens.
Wrecker steps back in, my phone clutched in his hand.
The look on his face stops me before he says a word.
He doesn't have to say it. I already know.
I felt it the second the phone rang, the quiet drop in my stomach that means something just got more complicated.
“She’s back,” I say.
Wreckers nods. “She’s at the bus station. She left Maura’s house late last night.”
“How?” The word comes out sharper than I mean it to. “How did she even—where’d she get the money?”
He shakes his head. “No clue. Said she saved it. Told me she missed everyone.”
“Does Maura know?”
He’s already calling, phone to his ear. “She’s about to.”
He paces while the line rings, then his tone softens when she answers, slipping effortlessly into Italian.
Fluid and rhythmic. A language that sounds like home even when it’s full of worry.
I only catch pieces. Daisy’s name. Bus station.
Safe. The way his voice dips makes my chest tighten.
Maura’s voice carries faintly through the receiver, urgent and upset, before Wrecker murmurs something gentle, something meant to calm her.
When he ends the call, his expression says enough.
“She’s worried sick,” he says, slipping the phone into his pocket. “But Daisy’s fine. She’s still at the station. Maura’s going to keep her on the phone until we get there.”
Max exhales, rubbing a hand over his jaw. Then he looks at me. “Wreck and you go get her.”
I blink. “Wait—what?”
“I’ll take Elias, Riot, and Margot if the clock runs out,” he says, voice steady but firm. “You handle Daisy.”
The words hit like a punch to the ribs. “Max—”
He steps in before I can finish, his hands framing my face, rough palms warm against my skin. “Sparrow,” he says softly.
It’s the way he says it. The name that’s both armor and plea. “You can’t be in two places at once,” he says. “Daisy came back to you. Liam gave you three hours. We still have time.”
I shake my head, but not because he’s wrong. Because he’s right. His forehead drops to mine, breath steady against my mouth. “Let me hold this line until then.”
My eyes burn. I hate that. I hate all of it. “Bring him home to us,” I whisper.
“I will,” he says. “If I have to go in after him, I will. But right now, you need to go get Daisy.”
He kisses me then. Hard, but sweet. A promise pressed into my mouth. When he pulls back, his thumb brushes my cheek. “Text me the second you have her.”
I swallow hard and nod. “You do the same.”
His crooked grin appears, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Always.”
Wrecker grabs his jacket and keys without another word. I follow him toward the door. Behind me, the war room keeps moving. Screens flashing, voices low. Plans forming around the clock Liam asked me to trust.
At the threshold, I stop and glance back at Max. I turn away before I change my mind. The door shuts behind us, the sound echoing through the hall. I stand there for half a breath, staring at nothing. Then I whisper to the empty air, “Come home to me, both of you.”
The bus station smells like diesel, cheap coffee, and bad decisions. People move like ghosts through the narrow lanes, heads down, bags clutched tight, the hum of the engines and departure announcements filling the air. Wrecker spots her fist.
“Over there,” he says quietly, nodding toward a bench near the far wall.
Daisy’s smaller than I remember, curled into herself, knees pulled up, a backpack resting against her legs. She looks up when she sees us, eyes widening before she breaks into a smile that’s too big for a place like this.
“Wrenley! Wrecker!”
She’s up before I can say a word, throwing her arms around Wrecker. He catches her, squeezing her so tight she squeaks. When he pulls back, his voice is rough. “You scared the hell out of us, kid.”
Daisy shrugs, trying to look innocent and failing spectacularly. “I’m sorry. I just… I missed everyone. Maura’s nice, really nice, but I didn’t like being with the other girls.”
I crouch down to meet her eye level. “You didn’t have to run away to tell us that, sweetheart.”
“I didn’t want you to say no,” she mumbles, kicking at the scuffed tile floor. “I don’t wanna be out there. I wanna be home and safe. With you guys.”
Wrecker and I share a look over her head, his full of worry, mine full of everything I can’t say. Home. The word cuts deep. Ours is many things, but safe isn’t one of them.
“Come on,” I say gently. “Let’s get you out of here. We’ll figure it out.”
She’s asleep before we’re halfway home. The steady drone of the road fills the silence, broken only by the occasional rumble of passing trucks.
Daisy’s curled in the back seat, cheek pressed to the window, breathing soft and even.
The sight of her asleep, the way her shoulders finally relax, hits something inside me I didn’t know was still raw.
“She looks different,” Wrecker says quietly, keeping his eyes on the road.
I glance back. “Yeah. Tired. Like she hasn’t slept in days.”
He exhales, hands tightening on the steering wheel. “You see it?”
I know what he means as soon as he says it. The faint shadow at the edge of her left eye. The kind of mark that doesn’t come from a stumble.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“Maura said nothing happened. Said the girls would argue sometimes, but she’d have called if—”
“She wouldn’t have called,” I say. “She knows how badly Daisy’s been hurt already. She already knew what it was.”
Wrecker’s jaw clenches. “I should’ve never left her there.”
“Hey,” I say softly, reaching out and placing my hand on his arm. “You gave her a chance to heal. You did what you could. None of us are built for normal anymore.”
He gives a humorless laugh. “Yeah. Well, she doesn’t deserve to live in our version of it either.”
He’s right. Bringing a kid into this, our chaos, our war, is the definition of insanity. But what choice do we have? The world already took too much from her.
“She can stay for now,” I say finally. “We’ll talk to everyone. Figure out what’s next.”
Wrecker nods, eyes still on the road. “You think they’re going to be pissed.”
I smile faintly. “Not at her, they might look at us like we’re crazy.”
By the time we turn down the long driveway toward the mansion, the sun’s dropped behind the trees. The air smells like rain and smoke, the kind that never really leaves this place. When the headlights sweep over the front steps, I see him.
Liam’s sitting on the stairs, elbows resting on his knees, Hugo at his side.
The dog’s ears perk up the second he spots us, tail thumping against the concrete.
Liam, my husband, my chaos, one half of my heart, looks up.
Our eyes meet through the windshield, and something in me finally exhales.
The relief that floods through me is cosmic.
Wrecker parks, and before the engine’s even off, I’m out of the car. Hugo bounds forward, but I barely notice. Liam’s already on his feet, moving down the steps toward me. He opens his arms, and I go straight into them. The rest of the world can wait. For now, everyone’s home.