Page 179 of The Final Cut

Deacon comes in first.

Then Marisol.

She is wearing a navy dress beneath a beige coat, both too neat for a woman who just slipped out of a cartel’s reach before breakfast. Her dark hair is pinned low, loose strands around her face, and shadows sit beneath her eyes in a way makeup hasn’t fully hidden. She stops at the edge of the barroom like crossing the threshold might change something she can’t change back.

For one second, I see her only as I saw her in the hospital. A woman with my face. A stranger holding Cal’s hand.

Then Delia makes a sound. It’s small and broken and barely anything, but Marisol hears it. Her eyes move to my sister.

Everything else disappears.

Delia crosses the room so fast she almost stumbles. Marisol meets her halfway, and then they’re holding each other, hard and silent. Delia’s face buries against our mother’s shoulder. Marisol’s hands spread over Delia’s back like she’s counting bones, checking proof, making sure the daughter in her arms is solid.

My throat closes—with emotion. With jealousy.

The second one is uglier, so I want to deny it. I don’t. It rises anyway, hot and bitter under my ribs, because Delia knows where to put her hands. Marisol knows how to hold her. There is history in the way they fit together. Terrible history, yes. History built inside a house with Isabel’s shadow over every corner, but history all the same.

I have no history, none after the age of seven, anyway. I have a hospital chapel and a name that doesn’t sound like Mom.

A hand settles between my shoulder and neck.

Ever.

He doesn’t pull me back or turn me away. He only squeezes once, thumb pressing into the tight muscle there. Steady. Present. A reminder that jealousy is a feeling, not a crime.

The burn in my throat settles enough for me to breathe.

Marisol opens her eyes over Delia’s shoulder, her gaze fixing on me. The room shifts again.

Delia doesn’t let go at first. Maybe she feels Marisol’s body change. Maybe she knows this part is harder. Slowly, she steps back, wiping beneath one eye with an angry little motion that dares anyone to mention it.

No one does.

Marisol starts toward me, but Nash moves first.

“Let’s do this in my office.”

The words are calm, but they stop her before she takes a third step.

Marisol looks at him. So do I.

For half a second, irritation sparks. I want to ask who died and made him emotional traffic control, except the answer is almost Cal, and that shuts the thought down before it reaches my mouth.

Nash’s gaze flicks to mine. Privacy, it says. Security too.

Fine.

We file into his office in a line that feels too much like a funeral procession for people who are all still breathing. Nash first. Then Marisol and Delia. Me behind them, with Ever at my shoulder. Shiloh follows. Deacon closes the door.

The office is smaller with all of us in it.

The fire barely touched this room, but the smoke got greedy. The shelves have been wiped clean, and a faint strip of soot still shadows the ceiling near the vent. A fan mutters in the corner, pointed toward the hallway. Nash’s desk smells like wood polish and smoke, old whiskey and newer bleach.

I remember the first time I sat here, pretending I could hold my own against Nash Blackwood with a fake name and a death wish. I remember the desk—and Deacon fucking me on it—the shelves, the dark leather chair, the smell of secrets older than me.

Now my mother stands near that same desk, and the only person missing is Cal.

Cal, guarded at the hospital by men with guns while machines breathe near him. His absence takes up the most space.