Silas didn’t speak. His jaw was locked, his hands slick with her blood, his arms cradling her like the child he’d once been—the one she’d left to keep him safe, the one she had returned for.
“She saved me,” I said, louder this time, the weight of it crashing down. “She saved me.”
Ryker and the others stood close now, but no one interrupted. Marcus’s hand rested lightly on Silas’s shoulder, hisface pale and unreadable. Charlie stood by the door, rifle low, eyes tracking shadows like they might come alive again.
“I don’t understand,” I said, barely recognizing the rasp of my own voice. “I thought she was this cold, untouchable operative. I thought she left because she couldn’t be both. But she still loved her boys.” My eyes locked on Silas. “She loved you. That’s why she came back. And when it counted most, she didn’t even hesitate.”
The truth of it cracked something open in me.
Because for years I’d held myself apart from my own family. I'd written off my parents in Arkansas as well-meaning but small-minded, too far removed from the life I’d clawed out for myself in Atlanta. I’d dismissed my sisters' calls, dodged family holidays, justified my distance as ambition. I told myself love had strings and guilt and judgment and old wounds that never healed.
But Caroline had spent decades estranged from her sons. And still, without blinking, she’d thrown herself in front of that bullet. Not for duty. Not for Department 77. But because somewhere in the fire and ashes of her choices, her love for her sons had survived.
“She didn’t owe me anything,” I whispered. “But she gave me everything.”
Silas didn’t look at me, but I saw his throat work.
My hands trembled in my lap.
I had a mother. A father. Siblings who’d all reached out more times than I deserved. Who had wanted to know me, see me, love me even when I pretended I didn’t need it.
And what had I given them in return?
Distance. Silence. Excuses.
“I have to call them,” I said suddenly. The words rushed out like breath after drowning. “When this is over, I have to call my family. I have to tell them I’m sorry.”
Elias looked over, his brow furrowed, but he didn’t say anything. None of them did. Because they understood. Every one of them had a scar from family—either the lack of it, the weight of it, or the desperate fight to reclaim it.
“I was selfish,” I went on, more to myself than anyone else. “I thought being strong meant standing alone. That if I let them back in, I’d crumble. That I had to keep running forward or I’d turn to salt like Lot’s wife.”
A shudder ran through me, hot and sharp. “But what’s the point of building anything if you cut the roots out first?”
Silas finally looked at me. His eyes were unreadable, filled with too much. Grief. Shock. Something close to awe. “You should,” he said hoarsely. “Call them.”
“I will,” I swore. “When we get home.”
Home.
Not just Atlanta.
Whereverhewas.
Silas turned back to his mother’s face, brushing her hair gently behind her ear. His lips were pressed into a white line, but when he spoke again, his voice broke. “She would’ve wanted that. For you.”
My throat closed. “For you, too.”
And then he nodded. Once. Just once. Like something inside him had shifted.
Caroline’s death wasn’t just an ending.
It was a reckoning.
And a beginning.
I reached out and touched her hand. Cool now. Stained. But still fierce, even in death.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice barely sound. “I’ll carry it. Every day. I’ll protect what you died for.”
