A hand lay on top of hers, giving a gentle squeeze of comfort. “I understand. Watching her go through this has got to be heartbreaking. That’s why now is the best time to move her somewhere that can care for her. You’re young yet, Daleyza. You deserve to live your life as well as you can under the circumstances. To wait until she’s too far gone, to see her in the stages of anger, paranoia, slipping into even further decline, will rob you of any chance to separate. You’ll feel even more guilty about placing her in a facility than you do now. You don’t want that.”
She paused a long time, her teeth making indentations in her lower lip until she tasted blood. Working hard to let go, she quickly swiped her tongue across the offended flesh, licking it away and leaving behind a metallic tang in her mouth.
Her eyes went to the woman across from her. “Could you do it? Could you resign a loved one to the hands of strangers when the only tenderness they’ve received in over a decade is from you?”
“I don’t know,” Esmerelda confessed. “My mother died when I was barely in school, and my father died when I was eighteen, so I’ll never have to face that decision. I’d like to think I’d do what was best for either of them, even knowing it would hurt me to do so. What any of us will do in any situation can never be a certainty until faced with having to make a choice.”
She knew the agent was right. She just wished she didn’t have to make this decision alone. But wishes didn’t change her situation, and she’d been alone a long time. Making decisions for Livia had become her responsibility alone since the death of her son. There was no one else to do it.
Esmerelda flipped over the doctor’s report. Behind it was the lengthy document Daleyza had refused to read. Sticking her head in the sand was no longer an option.
What would her son have wanted? What would he have done? It was useless to wonder, given that he was dead.
With a sigh, she picked up the pen. Page by page, she flipped to the sticky tabs marking where she needed to sign. She’d still have power of attorney. She’d still be able to visit. However, with each stroke of her pen, a weight seemed to lift as she handed over Livia’s day-to-day needs to a group of medical professionals who would be strangers, yet far better suited to care for her than she could.
It wasn’t until the final signature was completed that she realized just how hard she had been gripping the pen, her fingertips white with blood loss. Carefully and calmly, she set down the pen and sat back in her seat. The guilt was still there, but she knew it was for the best.
The papers disappeared from in front of her and slid back into the designer briefcase. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you’re doing the right thing,” Esmerelda said softly. The woman stood, put on her raincoat once again, and belted it tightly beforesecuring the sunglasses over her eyes. “A private service will be here to pick her up tomorrow at ten o’clock. She can have as many of her things with her as will fit in her room. It’s a good size, comes with a television so she can watch her stories, room for her personal furniture, and it has a wonderful view of the gardens. I’ve even sampled the food there, and it’s very, very good.”
“I can go with her to settle her in?”
The woman nodded. “I think that would be wonderful. It will likely make the transition easier. I’ll make sure to arrange for a car to pick you up when you want to come home.”
Daleyza escorted her to the front door.
Before the agent walked through it to her vehicle, she turned once more with a final reassurance. “She’ll be well cared for. It’s time to focus on you now, Senora Ortiz.”
Daleyza watched the woman walk down the porch steps and to her car as she wondered how to begin focusing on herself and what that even meant.
3
AUGUST 20, 2024
Steel
He wasbone-weary as he coded his entry into the apartment building that housed his crash pad. The apartment was in a rough part of Los Angeles, but he’d chosen it on purpose. He didn’t think anyone at Tribe knew about it, which had also been his intention. Their handler might. She knew things no one else knew. His team leader probably suspected he had a place, since their medic had one as well, but it was doubtful any of them knew where.
Normally, after a project, he would have gone back to his apartment at Tribe, but this trip had been their fourth trip in as many months, responding to intel on Ka-Bar’s location. Lately, they seemed to be chasing their tails regarding him, almost to the exclusion of all else.
Frustration on that front aside, he needed to be alone. He needed to not see the women and happy families welcoming his teammates home from the long stint away. He was truly thrilled for his friends.Things had changed so drastically for all of them in the last two years, and while there had been danger and heartbreak at times, his five teammates had all come out of their trials with strong women by their sides, and some of them now had instant families.
Waters, his team leader, had met an amazing woman nicknamed Kubrick, who was a Hollywood film director. Together, they had recently adopted twin six-year-old girls from Spain, Liliana and Catalina.
TB, their interrogator, had collared his submissive, a romance novelist they’d named Flame. Together, the couple had a baby boy who had just turned one, and they’d adopted a baby, a little Egyptian girl named Paris.
Nemo, a former teammate who now worked for an organization called Mythos, had reunited with a jewel thief from his past, a woman they called Gem, who also worked for the same group.
Demon, their medic, and Cherry, their handler, had finally come to their senses and committed to one another.
And Midas, their cyber-tech geek, along with a recent rescue victim, Mouse, had adopted Shakira and Ona, two Syrian sisters.
Tribe had gone from six reclusive, nothing-to-lose individuals who hunted down bad guys and rescued victims from all sorts of plots to five happily committed people who somehow managed to keep doing what they’d done for years before their other halves came into their lives… and him.
Steel was still alone. He’d always be alone. There was no happy ending coming for him. He had his and lost it.
Sunset rays streaming through the doors of the balcony. Heavy sighs and moans. Whispered praise and commands. Soft skin beneath his fingertips. A rabbiting pulse beneath his grip. Wide eyes glazed with passion. Stars exploding when they came together, then the quiet intimacy of returning to reality.
He slumped against the elevator wall. Not the time to get caught up in memories. Being boxed in wasn’t a safe place to lose his sense of who and what was around him. Not only that, the elevator broke on aregular basis, so he normally didn’t trust the box, but tonight he’d been too exhausted to climb four flights of stairs.
