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Restless, he slid out of bed, threw on his jeans, and slipped quietly into the living room so as to not awaken Gia.
His grandfather’s words from earlier in the day lingered.
We are your family.
He’d learned, finally, the meaning of family—family were the ones who had your six, the ones you called when your back was against the wall, the ones you were willing to fight and bleed for.
His teammates at Dìleas. They weren’t just people he trusted.
They were family.
Zach.
Despite the risk to his career, Zach stood with him, ready to help take down Vincente Lopez. His grandfather risked his position, too. They saw him as family—even when he hadn’t been ready to do the same.
Caleb’s gaze drifted to the box his grandfather had given him—the one he’d set down in the corner when they’d returned to the safe house, too preoccupied with the call to Lopez to worry about what it contained.
The one with his mother’s belongings.
He picked it up and carried it to the couch.
Just a plain brown box, like a million others delivered across the country every day. Unremarkable, with no hint of the weight it carried.
Digging out his multi-tool, he sliced through the tape.
Inside was a wad of white tissue paper. It had weight to it. When he peeled it back, a turquoise and silver squash blossom necklace emerged—nearly identical to the one someone had placed around his mother’s neck in her coffin.
A pang pulled tight in his chest.
One of her prized possessions, given to her by her mother on her wedding day. He’d thought his old man had pawned it years ago. Somehow, she’d kept it hidden—protected it, even as his father stole whatever he could for coke, booze, or whatever the hell else he was chasing.
On impulse, he fastened the heavy chain around his neck. The silver felt cool against his skin. Then it warmed to him.
He reached into the box again and found a sterling silver cuff bracelet, set with five turquoise stones, similar to the ones worn by Zach and his grandfather. He slipped it onto his wrist.
Beneath old photographs and insurance papers, he found a stack of journals. The top one had a colorful floral design on its cover.
It took him a moment to recognize it as the same adhesive shelf paper his mother used to line their kitchen cupboards.
He set the journal on his lap. Stared at it. Seconds crawled by.
Read it.
But what if it confirmed everything he’d always believed?
That her family had turned their backs on her.
Or worse—
What if everything Lillie Blackwater Varella told him was a lie?
Lifting the cover, he saw his mother’s light, looping scrawl.
At a glance, he could tell her mood when she wrote—on good days, the letters were big and rounded. On bad ones, when depression dragged her into a ravine she couldn’t escape, her handwriting turned small and pinched, like her emotions.
The first entry was dated the day she met Julian Varella—an outsider working at a local construction job—at the Navajo Nation Fair. A teenage girl, flush with excitement, who’d caught the attention of a handsome man in his twenties.
Caleb skimmed through the entries. They were sporadic rather than daily, reflecting the highs and lows that apparently dictated when his mother felt the need to write.