Page 51 of Carry on Wayward Son

She was still here. Whatever had happened, whatever had been done to her in whatever order and in whatever way, she had survived it. She’d come through it and built something out of the other side that was extraordinary and complicated and full of edges. Then she’d gotten on a ferry and come to investigate a case that had to hit close to home. She’d started asking questions about who had built the machinery that ground up people like her. Like the friend she’d lost.

That took more than courage. I didn’t have a word for what it took.

A certainty settled in me, sinking into my chest like an anchor finding the ocean floor. Not a decision exactly—it was past the point of being a decision, more like the recognition of something already done, something that had been forming for days now without my conscious permission. Whatever she was carrying, wherever this case led her, whatever came out on the other side of all of it, she wasn’t going to go through the worst of it by herself. Not while I was here. Not while I was breathing.

Not ever, if I could help it.

I didn’t examine it. Didn’t prod at it to see how it held up to scrutiny or logic or any of the operational thinking I’d been trained to apply to complex situations. I’d made decisions like this before, clean and quiet in the dark with no ceremony and no witnesses, and they tended to be the ones that stuck. The ones that held when everything else fell apart.

Outside, the storm had begun to tire itself out. There was still rain, but the fury was ebbing now, the violence draining away and becoming something steadier and less pointed. Just weather instead of wrath. Layla’s breathing had gone deep and even, her hands finally still where they’d settled in Koa’s dense fur, his substantial weight warm and immovable against her side.

“You still awake?” I murmured into the darkness.

“Barely,” she rasped, her voice rough with exhaustion and something that might have been relief.

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”

A long pause stretched between us, filled with the drum of rain and Koa’s breathing and all the things neither of us was saying. “Thank you. For—” She didn’t finish the thought, the words trailing off into silence.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I know.”

She was asleep before the storm fully dissipated, her breathing shifting into the deeper rhythm of genuine rest. I lay awake a while longer, listening to the rain settle into something ordinary and unthreatening. I looked at the dark ceiling of the cottage and let the decision I’d made sit where I’d put it, solid and unmoving in my chest.

It felt right. It felt like something I was going to keep.

Comfortable with that, I closed my eyes and let myself drift.

Twenty-Six

LAYLA

The aroma of garlic and fresh baked something filled the Sutter House kitchen, which was not what I’d expected when Rios called a war council.

Gabi stood at the stove, casually sautéing vegetables and flipping them with a practiced flick of her wrist. Bree hovered protectively over a covered dish of what appeared to be mac and cheese. And the unmistakable scent of baking bread permeated the kitchen, making my mouth water. Sawyer seemed to be reigning over the preparation of the sweet tea, while Ford and Daniel snuck pieces off a charcuterie tray. Willa and Madden sat heads together over a legal pad. Rios himself stood against the counter with his arms folded and the expression of a man who had decided the best he could do was let the chaos happen around him and trust that it would eventually become a meeting.

I stood in the doorway and tried to reconcile the war council with the dinner party. “Do they always do this?” I murmured to Jace.

“Pretty much.” He moved past me, and Roy materialized immediately, tail thumping, demanding his due. “It started as pizza night.”

Gabi looked over her shoulder from the stove. “We think better on good food.” She pointed a wooden spoon at me. “Sit down. Eat something first. Then we’ll get into all of it.”

“I wish I’d known. I should’ve brought something.” It hadn’t occurred to me that I ought to contribute to a dinner I didn’t know we were having.

“There is a Carrera in charge of the kitchen. We’ll all have leftovers for a week,” Madden said.

“Hey, I resemble that!” Gabi protested.

Daniel slid his arms around her waist. “Ain’t nobody complainin’, cher.”

With nothing left to do, I sat at one of the empty spots at the kitchen table. Koa arranged himself under the table and put his chin on my foot. Having exhausted scritches from Jace, Roy came to investigate. He and Koa nosed each other, tails wagging. I offered Roy a chin scratch from my seat and soaked in the ease of the group. Despite Jace’s comfort last night, I still felt a little rough around the edges. Hopefully, this chance to refocus on the case would do me good.

The food was extraordinary. Gabi’s garlic chicken with mushrooms was fragrant and moist. Bree’s mac and cheese had no business being as good as it was. The cornbread came out of the oven golden and perfect, and Willa set it on the table with a smile and a proclamation that her grandmother would’ve been proud. I watched the table pass dishes around and talk over each other and refill glasses, and thought about the work of building something like this. The choosing and being chosen, the years of showing up. You could see it in how they moved around each other. The ease that only came from time and trouble and not leaving.

When the plates were cleared, Rios shoved back from the table. “Let’s relocate.”

We all trailed him into the living room and took up more or less the same places we’d occupied on my first day here, when they’d given me the broad strokes of the case. God, that had only been a week ago. I’d expected to be gone by now. Turning things over to Devon.

Instead, I was still here, digging in my heels with the case. With Jace Hollingsworth in my bed. And on my own in a way I hadn’t been my entire adult life. I tried not to think about what that meant as Rios began to speak.