The thugs he’d been working for weren’t asking anymore. They were losing patience. Which meant Lucas was about to be forced into a choice or punished for refusing to make one. The walls were closing in, and I’d be damned if I let Marisol get caught between them.
She stepped out of the hospital just after six, her shoulders sagging the second she spotted my truck waiting at the curb. The heat from the day radiated off the pavement, and she lookedlike she’d been carrying the weight of the whole day on her shoulders. Her hair fell in loose waves around her face, and the exhaustion in her eyes went deeper than just needing a couple of hours of extra sleep.
“You’re really doing this,” she said as she opened the door and climbed inside.
“Yes.”
She dropped her purse at her feet and leaned back against the seat. “Are you planning on following me everywhere now?”
“Yes.”
She let out a long breath and shook her head, staring out the window as I pulled away from the curb. “I’m not your problem, Caleb. I don’t belong to you.”
“You belong alive.”
She turned toward me then, her expression sharp and searching, like she was trying to decide whether to be angry or grateful or something in between. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It isn’t,” I said. “But I’m damn good at my job.”
The drive home was quiet, the kind of silence that settles in when too much has already been said. The sun dipped lower over the rooftops, the heat still lingering in the air, and the town moved at its usual unhurried pace. Kids rode bikes in the street. A couple sat on their porch with sweet tea. Someone grilled in a backyard nearby.
All of it looked peaceful. That was what made it dangerous.
When we pulled into her driveway, Lucas was already waiting on the porch. His arms were crossed tight against his chest, his jaw set in a way that told me he’d been working himself into something for a while before we arrived.
I nodded at the agent who’d been tracking Lucas all day to let him know I could handle things from here.
Marisol tensed. “What’s wrong?”
Lucas’s gaze snapped to me. “I told you he was gonna screw things up.”
“Lucas,” she warned, the edge in her voice sharp with nerves.
“You think he’s here to help? He’s here because someone told him to watch us.”
I stepped out of the truck slowly, keeping my movements calm and measured. “That’s not how this works.”
“You don’t know how it works,” Lucas shot back. “You just think you do.”
Marisol moved toward him. “That’s enough. What happened?”
Lucas hesitated, the brave face he’d been hiding behind faltering just long enough for the truth to leak through. “They came back.”
Marisol’s face went pale. “Who came back?”
“The guys from before. From the park.”
My spine went rigid. He’d been tailed all day. The only time he hadn’t had protection was while he was at school. “When?”
“Today at lunch.”
Marisol’s hand curled into a fist at her side. “What did they say?”
Lucas swallowed. “They said they were going to give me one last chance to fix things.”
The words hit her like a slap across the face. I saw it in the way her breath caught and the way her shoulders tightened.
“You don’t meet them again,” I said. “Don’t answer their calls. And for sure, you don’t go anywhere alone.”
