I press the leather until heat flushes my fingers. This is personal. This is close.
I stand in the doorway, scrap in my fist, the smell of smoke under my nails, and I know the rival alpha's message is only the beginning.
6
MIA TORRES
He takes Leo’s hand like it’s nothing—a smooth, casual reach—and the world narrows to the space between my son and that stranger’s fingers.
I move before I think. I hear myself screaming my name and his, but it’s useless. The man’s hand closes. Leo’s face twists—surprise, then fear. People around the farmers’ market freeze, then surge. Someone shouts. Someone fumbles for a phone.
Then metal hits my shoulder. Strong arms shove me back. A low, controlled voice says my name.
“Get behind me.” Caleb.
He’s in front of me before I register how he got there—jeans, denim jacket, boots that have seen dirt and miles. His grip on the stranger’s wrist is iron. The man tries to pull Leo toward an alley. Caleb won’t let go. The attacker’s features harden, something animal and practiced flaring in his face.
A second man lunges with a knife. He never gets the angle. A flash of movement, then men in black—too quick for the market—pin the two attackers. Not uniformed police. Pack. My chest tightens at the sight. Men and women I’ve come to trust move with predator choreography. They take the knife away. Someone snaps cuffs over rough wrists.
An elder I met once—soft eyes, silver at the temple—kneels beside Leo and scoops him up like he’s fragile glass. He smells of woodsmoke and lavender. He speaks low, in Spanish and then English; the cadence is the same: steady, calming.
“Leo, you’re okay.” He presses a palm to Leo’s back. The boy buries his face in the elder’s shirt and starts to shake.
The crowd is recording. Phones flash. A woman cries. An off-duty cop finally steps forward, badge out; the pack freezes, hands visible, until he nods them through. The knife-wielder is on his knees, spit on his face, eyes wild and darting. I want to tear him apart with my bare hands.
Caleb’s face is a mask. He looks like he wants to feed me the world and then crush anyone who touches it. His jaw trembles once. He presses his hand to his chest as if to still something there. Blood smears his knuckles—he’s not badly hurt, but not unscathed either. An old crescent scar along his thumb is pink with fresh grit.
“You all right?” he asks Leo, and his voice is gentle enough to melt me and lethal enough to warn off anyone else.
Leo nods. “Caleb,” he says, breathless. “He grabbed me.”
“He did.” Caleb’s hand—big, callused—smooths Leo’s hair with a motion that’s careful and private. My knees wobble. The old belief—needing help means losing control—crashes into a new truth: help can be a warm, steady thing that keeps the darkness away.
Paramedics check Leo’s knee, patch a small scrape, hand him a sticker. Caleb lingers, a shield. Witnesses form a ring. Someone starts talking to the police. The attackers leave in squad cars. The off-duty cop gives me a number for the lead detective and promises statements.
“Come with us,” Caleb says finally. “Sit. Don’t go home yet.”
The market smells like apples, coffee, and fear. I sit on a curb while Leo clutches my hand. Caleb sits too, his thigh asteady presence against mine—close enough for warmth without crowding.
“I’m sorry,” I say. The words are small, ashamed. I should have seen it. I should have been faster. Stronger. More vigilant.
“You did what you could,” Caleb says. “And you smelled him first. That’s how you saw him.”
“I saw him too late.” My voice cracks. “I can’t afford a mistake like this. Not with the custody hearing?—”
“You won’t make another.” His certainty is a vow I want to barricade my life with.
Later, at the scene, Tanner—the big man who fixed my sink two weeks ago—kneels and pulls a sealed evidence bag from his jacket. He hands it to the lead detective. “Found on the one who grabbed the kid,” he says. “We got a comm and a receipt.”
The detective opens the bag. The comm is cheap—one of those disposable satellite transmitters. There’s a motel receipt too. The name printed on it sends my stomach dropping. A name I know. My ex’s name.
“Where did you get that?” the detective asks Tanner.
“From his pocket,” Tanner says. “They carried more than they needed.”
Caleb comes up behind me; the scent of him—hay, rain, leather—that has threaded through my life since he offered to be Leo’s guardian settles around me like a blanket. I can’t focus on anything but the small warmth of Leo’s hand, how much of myself I’ve tied to that boy.
Protocol sends us to the hospital. They run tests, treat the scrape, do a standard battery of checks. He’s shaken but alive. Every reassurance makes the thought pulse: what if next time they don’t stop him? What if this is the first chapter, not the last?
