Page 60 of The Last Call Home (The Timberbridge Brothers #5)

Chapter Fifty-Six

Cassian

In less than twenty minutes, we’ve deployed aerial surveillance—drones cutting through the night sky like bloodhounds, scanning every major and minor road between Birchwood Springs and the Maine coast. Their lenses track heat signatures, monitor vehicle speed, and feed us with real-time updates on anything moving northeast along potential exit routes.

We’re airborne too, en route to Eastmoor Bay—the quiet, unmonitored stretch of coastline where Ashport Docks sits nestled against the tree line.

It’s a place forgotten by most, but perfect for anyone wanting to disappear without questions or cargo witnesses.

We’ve calculated their direction, cross-checked timestamps from the audio, and barring any detours, we should arrive before they do.

The plan, as bare-bones and urgent as it is, is to intercept them before they reach the water.

We’re preparing for an ambush. Every agent around the area is making their way to the docks.

I’m hopeful that we’ll be rescuing Lilah, but .

. . there’s another layer to this kidnapping.

One that presses cold against my spine no matter how hard I try to stay focused.

Rosalinda disappeared too.

The team initially assigned to Rosalinda’s surveillance—those we trusted to keep eyes on her at all times—joined the search for Delilah.

By the time agents reached her home, she was nowhere to be found. No sign of forced entry. No struggle. No neighbors saw her leave. No cameras picked up movement.

It’s like she just disappeared.

It’s like she vanished into thin air.

One moment Rosalinda was there—untouchable in her own stubborn, infuriating way, protected by agents, watched by surveillance, encased in routines we thought were secure—and the next, gone.

No trace. No sound. No clue. Just the hollow silence of a house still warm from her absence, like she simply walked out of the frame of her life.

And maybe that’s what happened.

Maybe whoever took Delilah decided they couldn’t risk the woman who knew too much. Maybe they circled back to erase what was left.

Or maybe—maybe she knew something was coming. Perhaps she slipped away before they could get to her. Maybe Rosalinda ran to protect her daughter the only way she could, disappearing into shadows of her own making.

We don’t fucking know.

The plan is barely holding—stitched with adrenaline and desperation. Intercept before they reach the docks. Extract her before she’s loaded onto a boat we won’t be able to track once it cuts across open water. Every second ticks louder than the last.

Malerick and I are in the helicopter now, side by side, helmets on, voices patched through a shared channel, the rotor blades slicing above us with rhythmic, deafening precision.

The sky is black, the horizon bleeding faintly with the threat of sunrise, and we are hurtling toward Eastmoor Bay with a fury that could tear the clouds apart.

I clench my fists just to stop the tremor. Useless.

Fuck, what if we’re too late?

What if they panic during the chase and decide she’s not worth the risk? What if they take it out on her just to buy time? What if we find her—broken or already beyond our reach?

I try not to let it show, but Malerick knows. He always knows. He’s watching the screens in front of him, scanning the feed, tracking vehicle paths and thermal reads, but I see the way his jaw clenches, the way his fingers twitch against his thigh.

And then—without saying a word—he reaches across the space between us and takes my hand.

His grip is firm, grounding me in ways I didn’t know I needed. It’s as if he’s holding the pieces of me together when I can’t do it myself.

“We’ll find her,” he says, voice quiet in my headset, but it slices through the noise like it was meant for the marrow of me. “We’ll find her before they can break her.”

I nod, but it’s a brittle thing.

Because the guilt is already building deep in my soul, screaming in the back of my skull that we should’ve seen this coming, that we should’ve fought harder to keep her tethered, that every moment we let her go off on her own was another moment lost.

Malerick’s grip tightens.

“It’s not our fault,” he says again, more firmly this time, like he knows I need the repetition. Like he knows I won’t stop blaming myself unless he keeps saying it, until it carves its way past the guilt.

“It’s not our fault, Cass,” he says. “You hear me? This isn’t on us.”

I nod again, but this time my throat catches.

Because it doesn’t matter how many weapons we’re carrying, or how good our intel is, or how fast we fly—without her, we’re not whole.

She’s not just ours to protect.

She’s ours.

And if we lose her?—

No, I can’t let myself think that.

Malerick is still holding my hand. “She’s going to be fine. Remember, they need to keep her in one piece, or the boss will be upset.”

That’s true.

They mentioned it more than once. Careful. That was the word. Like she’s fragile. Precious. Something too valuable to damage, not out of mercy but possession.

“Gil figured out the bracelet,” Malerick says, his voice cutting through my focus, grounding me just enough to register the shift in his tone. “It’s coordinates. A bank. Safe number included. That’s where they’re heading—somewhere in San Francisco to retrieve what’s inside.”

I blink, and only then do I realize I haven’t checked a single message since we took off.

My phone’s been vibrating against my thigh, dozens of alerts waiting to be acknowledged.

But I haven’t looked at any of them. I’ve just been staring at the feed—watching the screen, following the thermal pings and the dots of movement that represent vehicles we can’t yet touch.

We’ve got three potential leads. Three paths. If they’re trying to split up and lose us in the confusion, it’s not going to work—not this time. We might not know which vehicle she’s in, but we know exactly where they’re going.

The flight feels longer than it should. Not because of distance but because every minute spent in the air feels like we’re gambling seconds we can’t afford to lose.

But when Eastmoor Bay finally appears beneath us, the monitor on the dash confirms what we’d hoped: the lead cars are still at least an hour out.

They’re not here yet.

Relief flashes through me so fast it nearly knocks the wind from my lungs, but it’s tainted—immediately followed by a new kind of dread. Because this? This is our chance. The margin. The narrow space between too late and just in time. We either seize it, or we fail her.

The picture of the docks fills the screen, and something in my chest pulls tight.

It looks abandoned, but nothing about it feels empty.

Trees crowd the perimeter like they know what’s coming. Old cranes sag toward the water. The pier sprawls into the bay like an invitation to disappear.

Salt thickens the air the moment we descend—coiling around the scent of rust and oil, the tang of seawater mixing with rot and diesel. It clings to the back of my throat and makes my hands twitch as I pull on my gloves and reach for my weapon.

Malerick’s already moving, dropping from the chopper with practiced ease, barking orders to the advance team without looking back. His movements are tight, precise, but I can see the tension working through his shoulders.

He’s not breathing right, either. None of us are.

We move through the trees, boots skimming over damp earth. No one speaks.

The docks unfold in front of us like something from a crime scene photograph—half-sunken boats slouched against the pilings, tarps whipping in the breeze like torn fabric from another life. An old security tower blinks red in the distance, the bulb flickering like it’s down to its last heartbeat.

I glance at the satellite overlay on my screen. One vessel. Large. Docked at the far end. Unmarked. No lights.

No crew visible.

Perfect.

“This is it,” I say, my voice low. The words feel like they’ve been waiting in my chest for hours. “This is where they’re going to arrive.”

And this—right now—might be the only moment we have to stay ahead of them.

Because once that boat opens, everything changes.