Page 126 of The Last Call Home
“Put her down,” I call out.
My voice cuts through the space between us like a blade—clean, precise, laced with fury.
He spins and that’s when I see him.He doesn’t have a mask on anymore.
It’s him—Desmond.Older than I remember, older than the last grainy photo we had in the file.Late sixties, maybe.Hair now more iron than black, swept back with meticulous care, despite the chaos.He wears tactical gear fitted over a starched white dress shirt, now blood-streaked and torn at the collar.The lines around his mouth have deepened.His jaw is tight.His pale blue eyes—once charming, once used to disarm and deceive—are wild and defiant now.
My blood turns electric.
I hesitate for half a heartbeat, stunned by the impossibility of him standing here.We could finish him.It could be over.Once we cut off the head of the Syndicate, the body will collapse.And I raise my gun, breath locked in my throat, trigger almost entirely drawn?—
But before I can pull the trigger ...
Crack.
A single bullet tears through his thigh.
He cries out, stumbles sideways, collapsing against the gangway rail with a sickening clang, weapon flying from his hand and clattering to the floor.
I freeze.
What—
I turn, breath sharp and ready for anything?—
And there she is.
Rosalinda Mora.
Standing ten feet back on the dock like she just stepped out of the fog and rewrote the entire ending of this nightmare.
She’s holding a compact pistol with both hands—grip tight, shoulders square, stance practiced.There’s no hesitation in her face.
And beside her?—
A man.
Tall.Broad-shouldered.Mid-sixties maybe, but built like a storm front.His crisp white shirt is half-unbuttoned, sleeves rolled to his forearms, exposing tan skin and sinew earned from decades of combat or something worse.A thick scar cuts through one eyebrow, silver against weathered skin, but it doesn’t dull the intensity of his eyes—cool, sharp, and forever sweeping.
Military.Or ex-military with no intention of ever retiring.
There’s a carbine slung tight to his chest, movements clean and economical as he scans the docks, backing Rosalinda.
Like the scene might vanish.Like I imagined her, imagined him.
But they don’t vanish.
Rosalinda stands there, spine straight, gun still hot in her hand.She lowers it slowly—methodically—like she’s savoring the moment.Her eyes don’t leave Desmond.Not for a second.
Not even when Delilah—bleeding and breathless—turns in my arms, staring at her like she’s witnessing something biblical.
Rosalinda’s lips curl.
Fury.Satisfaction.A blade of something maternal and deadly and holy.
“Cabrón,” she says, voice low and steady, venom laced through every syllable.“¿Crees que iba a dejar que te llevaras a mi hija?”
Her words cut through the wind, landing like a bullet in my chest.
