Page 104 of The Last Call Home
“We’ll be backfor you later today,” Mal says as he helps me out of his car.
His hand lingers on the small of my back, warm and possessive.It should be comforting.It only makes my skin prickle with the ache to be touched again.Touched differently.
“It’s fine.I can walk to the ...”I stop myself before I say it.
Bakery.
My bakery.
The word claws at the back of my throat, bitter and burning.
“I can head to pick up my car,” I finish, voice brittle.
Mal flinches.It’s subtle, but I sense it in the tension that ripples through his fingers as they slip away from me.
“What?”I demand, already knowing.Already bracing.
“It didn’t make it,” he says, his voice low, apologetic.“Your car was behind the building.”
My heart races upward.It wasn’t just the café.They wanted everything—my place, my livelihood, my freedom.
“Was anyone injured?”The question scrapes past my lips.It hadn’t even occurred to me.My grief was too immediate, too selfish.
He shakes his head.“No.It’s like they did it with precision.They waited for just the right moment—when everyone would be by the park or inside the bar.It was a message.A warning.”
A warning.
“Why my bakery?”The rage bubbles up fast, wild, and hot.I don’t hold it back.“I’m nice, Mal.I donate.I help everyone in town, for fuck’s sake.”
The crack in my voice is a scream I can’t let out.
Mal steps in, pulling me into his arms as he can somehow hold back the storm I’ve been choking down since the moment the smoke hit the sky.
“It wasn’t about you, baby.”His lips graze my hair, and I hate how much I need the comfort.“Your café’s beloved by everyone.That’s exactly why.It wasn’t personal.It was strategic.They wanted to shake the town—to let everyone know they can take what we cherish most.”
His voice is tight with guilt, with fury, and something darker I can’t name.It lives beneath his skin, just like mine.
My chest rises against his.My hands fist the front of his shirt, dragging him closer like I need his heartbeat to drown out mine.His breath hitches, and I feel it—low in my stomach, in the heat pooling beneath my skin, in the ache that’s far too familiar when it comes to him.
“You think I’m supposed to accept that?”I whisper.“That someone can just decide to ruin me to prove a point?”
“No.”His mouth is close enough that I feel the word against my lips.“I don’t want you to accept anything.I want you to survive it.”
His eyes search mine, dark with regret, with restraint, with something desperate that matches the fire churning inside me.It’s not just anger—it’s everything.Every moment I’ve ever needed him and hated needing him.Every time, I imagined what it would feel like to fall apart in his arms and what it would cost me to let him see it.
Then, her voice slices through the moment.“Gracias a dios, mi chiquita.Estos hombres no querían dejarme verte.”
Mami’s voice pulls taut like a snapped cord, cutting straight through the invisible thread, keeping me pressed against Malerick.
She rushes in, yanking me from his arms and into hers with a grip so fierce it borders on pain.I don’t resist.I can’t.
Her hands sweep over my body like she's counting bones, as if touch could rewrite the truth.Her eyes take me in with that anxious fervor only mothers have—the one that sees through words, straight into fear.
She inspects me like she did when I was five and broke my arm falling off the backyard swing.Back then, her panic smelled like cinnamon and tears.Today, it smells like burnt sugar and smoke.
“As promised, we’ve been taking care of her,” Malerick protests behind me.
Mom’s glare lands on him like a silent curse.
