Page 64 of The Last Call Home (The Timberbridge Brothers #5)

Chapter Sixty

Delilah

This night was supposed to be shrimp tacos and mocktails. Laughing with Simone, and maybe watching something mindless on her couch.

Instead, I was pulled out of my car like stolen luggage. Someone sedated me and shove me onto a boat like I was a goddamn shipment.

And there’s the part where Mom shot a man to save me.

To top it all off I’m at a hospital. I hate hospitals.

The fluorescent lights shine like they’re trying to blind me.

Everything smells like antiseptic and stale fear.

They probably built this place—and any other hospital—to make people feel safe, but no one has ever succeeded.

I’m wrapped in a hospital gown, a warm blanket draped over my lap, yet I still feel cold in a way that has nothing to do with the room.

My wrists throb under layers of gauze. The inside of my elbow itches where they prodded the needle in. Which it happened to bejust a sedative—thank fuck. It was nothing permanent or fatal. Just enough to keep me quiet while they moved me like they were taking out the trash.

My shoulder aches with every shift of my body, a dull throb intensifies when I try to move. I don’t know when I hit the ground or who wrenched it back, but something cracked. I’ll feel it later—worse than now.

I try to patch the timeline together, but my mind feels like a dropped snow globe. Fragments swirling in chaos. Tires screeching. Shouting. That slap across my face, was gloved and impersonal. Someone yelled when I fought back. Pain, blooming and immediate behind my eyes.

Then there was Cassian’s voice, loud and ragged.

A gunshot.

A moment where my heart forgot what rhythm meant.

I’m dragged out of my memories when the door opens, and everything inside me tenses.

But it’s just Mom. Or not just—she’s more frantic than I’ve ever seen her, her hair wild, eyes wide.

Her lipstick’s gone, smudged clean off like she’s been biting her lips raw or wiping her mouth every time she thought of what might have happened.

“Mijita, me asustaste,” she whispers, rushing to my side. She hugs me as if she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.

“I’m okay, Mami,” I say, even though I’m not sure I believe it. And of course, I have to ask, “Where did you get the gun?”

That stops her short.

“That’s what you’re going to ask?” Her eyes narrow. She clutches the bed rail like she might rattle it off its hinges. “The important thing is that we don’t have to leave Birchwood Springs.”

I blink. “I almost got trafficked to another country, and you’re glad we don’t have to pack up the bakery?”

The man who’d been with her at the docks steps into the room like a slow-moving shadow. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t sit. Just stands there, awkward and tall and watchful. Something about him tugs at the edge of my memory—like I’ve seen his silhouette in a dream I forgot.

“And you are?” I ask, voice sharp but trembling.

He gazes at Mom. She sighs as if this were a sitcom and not the unraveling of my entire reality.

“She doesn’t know me?” he asks.

“Of course not,” Mom snaps. “I wasn’t going to tell my daughter that her father was a gang member—and died because of it. Your brother killed you. That’s toxic and gives the wrong message.”

He grimaces. “It wasn’t a gang. It was the Hollow Syndicate. And I wasn’t a member—I was the heir. My father was in charge. Desmond wanted the crown.”

“I thought he killed you,” she mutters, not looking at him.

“Yeah,” he breathes out. “We let you—and everyone else—think that. The FBI had a plan—go undercover, take the whole thing down. They failed. I had to stay dead.”

Mom’s jaw ticks. “I’m still mad at you.”

They’re bickering like old acquaintances. No, more like a couple, which is weird because Mom has been loyal to my father’s memory since he died. Or . . . maybe not. She’s been dating this guy for a long time and never mentioned it to me? What other secrets does she have?

“You can yell at each other later,” I cut in, my voice a little thinner than intended. “Maybe in couples therapy or something. But seriously—who are you?”

“Your father, of course,” Mom says, like she’s offering me tea instead of a bombshell. “Didn’t I tell you I had been seeing him? I thought he was either a ghost or that Desmond looked lot like him. It turns out he was actually alive.”

I stare at him. Alive. Not buried. Not a figment of my mother’s imagination.

Alive.

“How?” I whisper. “You don’t even look like the pictures.”

He sheepishly glances at Mom, who shrugs.

“I bought the frames with the stock photos,” she says. “The model looked decent enough.”

I gape. “Mom.”

“Again—he was in a criminal empire,” she says, waving her hands. “I had to improvise. I thought he was dead. You needed something.”

The man—my father—clears his throat. “My brother did try to kill me so he could run the Syndicate. I didn’t want that life for you or for Rosi.”

“Don’t you ‘Rosi’ me,” she mutters.

I look at him like I’m trying to solve a puzzle without the box. “So you just let us grieve you?”

He flinches. “I made a deal to keep you both safe. Rosalinda agreed.”

“You said it was for the best. You’d come back to me,” Mom mutters. “You never did.”

I sit a little straighter. “Then explain why they kept calling me the heir. Why did they keep saying I was ‘the right one.’ Like I was supposed to unlock something?”

There’s a long silence.

Mom is the first to crack. Her shoulders deflate. “We thought if we kept you away, if we never told you the truth . . . they wouldn’t come looking.”

“They didn’t forget,” I whisper.

“No,” she says, voice trembling. “They didn’t.”

“So, what am I to them? A legacy? A code? A throne?”

They exchange a glance. My father looks like he wants to lie. My mother seems to have run out of ways to protect me.

“You were supposed to be free,” she says, almost inaudible. “Desmond wanted to marry you to one of his men . . . give him the right to take over so he could step down.”

Wow, arranged marriage and all. I’m . . . not sure how to take this at all. “Why would they think I’m that important? That marrying me matters.”

“You’re my child and the only heir.” My father sighs like the truth is heavier than the room can bear.

“It mattered to them because they believe the family legacy is power. Not just money. Not just land. Power rooted in things we don’t talk about in daylight.

You weren’t supposed to be involved. But you were always the contingency plan.

The one they’d come for if everything else failed. ”

“How did you know where to find me?” I have to ask, because honestly I had no idea if anyone could reach me before these people killed me.

“We had some people in the Syndicate that gave us the information,” he states.

“And Malerick? Cassian?” My throat tightens. “Did you know they’d be there?”

“No,” Mom says quickly. “But thank God they were. I just don’t think Cass is a bartender and Malerick a sheriff.”

She narrows her eyes, voice dipping low. “You don’t learn that kind of training mixing drinks and handing out speeding tickets.”

Instead of acknowledging her suspicious, I look down at the band on my wrist—hospital ID, room number, last name.

The plastic feels too tight, like it’s cinching a version of me I no longer recognize.

Each letter is a stranger's tattoo burned into my skin. I’m not sure if it’s mine anymore.

Everything feels wrong. Stolen. Like I’ve been dropped into someone else’s nightmare and told to survive it like I remember the rules.

“I don’t know who I’m supposed to be anymore.” My voice is hollow. Not fragile. Just . . . a void.

I have a father who was never dead. My destiny wasn’t pastries, but being a wife to some asshole who could take over a criminal family.

“You’re mine,” Mom says fiercely, taking my hand like she’s trying to stitch me back together with her grip alone. “You’re still my daughter. Not theirs. Not his. You don’t belong to them. You never did.”

My father doesn’t argue. Doesn’t defend himself because he knows he lost that right when he never came back. He just nods slowly, like every word she says slices through something inside him. It’s like he’s already lost the right to claim me, and he’ll have to live with that.

Before anyone else can speak, the door groans open and Cassian walks in.

He’s breathing hard, jaw clenched, fists raw. The collar of his shirt is torn. His eyes sweep over me—quick, like a scan for injuries—and then remain locked there, unreadable, and searing. Protective. Possessive. Alive.

My pulse skids. Not from fear.

“Where is Malerick?” I ask, my voice pilling out faster than thought. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but I want to see you both.”

“In surgery.” Cassian’s voice is low, ragged. “According to Simone’s nurse, no organs were hit. Bullet passed through clean. He’ll be sore as fuck and I’m going to have to play nurse to both of you. But if you survived this, you two will survive me.” He winks at me.

I notice then that his knuckles are split, with red crust dried around the gashes. One hand curls around the doorframe like he’s holding himself back—like if he steps further, he might lose whatever grip he has left.

The relief hits me like a wave, too sudden to resist. My knees threaten to buckle, though I’m not standing.

My whole body sinks deeper into the mattress like it’s the only thing catching the free fall.

My hands clench the blanket, twisting it until the cotton bites into my palms. I’m trying to keep myself from spiraling—to the space where Malerick was, where I almost wasn’t.

Cassian sees it. His jaw works once. Then he’s moving.

Every inch he closes between us makes it harder to breathe, harder to keep pretending I’m not falling apart inside. He stops at the edge of the bed but doesn’t touch—not yet. His chest rises and falls like he’s been holding this breath since he arrived at the docks.

“You should be resting,” he murmurs.

“I was trying to, until my mother told me I’m some heir to the mafiosos, my father is alive, and then you showed up looking like a fucking crime scene,” I whisper back.

His eyes drop to my fists clenched in the blanket. Then, slowly—so goddamn slowly—it’s like time bends around him, he reaches out. His fingers graze mine.

A whisper of contact. Skin brushing against skin, heat making its way through the cold that's been locked in my bones since they pulled me out of that van.

Just enough to tell me that we survived.

“How are you?” he asks.

His voice does something to me. It cracks something under my ribs—not cleanly, not painlessly. Just . . . wide enough to let him in.

I want to tell him that I’m fine. I want to lie through my teeth and pretend that this isn’t unraveling me.

But I’m not fine. I’m strung out on grief, high on adrenaline, and dizzy with the need that has been simmering beneath my skin since the moment he walked in.

“I’m exhausted,” I manage, barely. “Confused.”

He nods, slow and sure. “That’s normal.” His gaze doesn’t leave mine, but his hand moves again—up, past my wrist, my arm—until his fingers gently catch a piece of my hair and tuck it behind my ear.

His touch lingers just a moment too long, like he can’t quite let go.

“When you’re ready, I have a list of counselors who can help you. ”

His thumb traces the edge of my jaw, and, fuck—it burns. It soothes. It pulls a noise from my throat that doesn’t belong in a hospital bed.

“It’s going to take time,” he says, voice thick with something that feels like devotion. “But we’re going to be okay.”

“We will,” I mumble, but it’s barely a sound. My mouth is dry, heart hammering too hard for something that shouldn’t be happening right now. But he’s closer now. Too close. Not close enough.

He bends toward me, slow as sin. Eyes locked on mine. Breath uneven.

I feel every inch of it—the climb. The build. The gravitational pull that’s lived between us from the beginning, stretching taut and wild and impossible to ignore now that everything else has been stripped away.

My breath stutters. His lips are just inches from mine.

“You sure?” he murmurs, like a secret, like a promise.

I don’t answer with words.

I just tilt my chin up and close the fucking distance.

The moment his mouth touches mine, I swear the room disappears.

His lips are warm, insistent, his mouth open and tasting and taking like he’s starving for this.

For me. And I give it to him—everything.

All the fear, the fury, the fire trapped beneath my skin.

I kiss him like I’ll never get another chance.

Like this is the only way to stay alive.

His hand finds my jaw, holding me in place, and he deepens it with a sound that rips through both of us. I moan into his mouth, threading my fingers into the front of his shirt, pulling him closer even though we both know we can’t. Not here. Not now.

But fuck it.

I need to feel. I need to burn.

And he kisses me like he’s ready to burn with me.