Page 27 of Echoes and Oaths
Eira let out a shaky breath, her heart twisting painfully. She murmured. “But, Mom, I feel soviolated. I feel like he walked away from something I never would’ve walked away from. How do I trust him again?” She shook her head, the emotion rising sharp and hot in her throat. “I don’t know if I can allow him to redeem himself. How can he possibly fix what he did? How can I ever know that once hehas us he won’t leave again? How can I ever be sure?” Of all the things that screamed through her mind right now, that was one of the loudest. He’d left them. By choice. He’d walked away and stayed away until he was sent back. Would he have returned without that direction?
Her mother stood without answering, gathering their teacups and carrying them back into the kitchen. The faint sound of running water filled the silence as she rinsed them and set them on the drying rack.
Then she crossed the room and turned down the lantern, casting the house in deeper shadows.
When she came back, she stopped in front of Eira and looked at her daughter, her voice soft but certain. “I suppose I should ask you one more question,” she said quietly. “How will you live if you don’t give him the chance?”
“How will I live if he leaves us again?” The whispered words dropped between them. Forgiving him? She could do that. Eventually. Trusting him? She may never be able to do that again. Trusting him with not only her heart, but Teo’s, too? She closed her eyes, and a tear dropped over her cheek. “How, Mom?”
“I can’t answer that. It is a question for you only.”Her mother quietly slipped back into her room, the soft click of the door closing sounding louder in the stillness of the house. The faint light beneath the door disappeared, leaving Eira alone in the darkness.
She exhaled shakily and let her head fall back against the worn cushion of the couch, her eyes closing as the weight of everything pressed down on her chest.
“I don’t know,” she whispered into the silence, her voice fragile, breaking at the edges.
And she didn’t. She didn’t know how she would live if she sent him away without giving him the chance to prove he loved her, or without letting him show that his leaving had been an act of protection, not abandonment. What he’d done, the choices he’d made, had been born from love and not neglect. Her throat tightened, her heart aching under the storm of doubt and hope swirling inside her.Dear God … what was the next step?
CHAPTER 9
The old wooden door creaked as it swung open, revealing Raven stepping onto the small porch. The heavy evening mist rolled over the green hills, and the humid air clung to everything like a second skin. Raven's lips curved in a grin as she glanced down and crouched, scratching behind the ears of the scruffy little dog glued to Jinx’s side.
She shook her head and chuckled. "Jinx, how the hell do you keep finding animals?"
Jinx leaned back against the doorframe, a lazy, amused glint in his eyes. "They find me," he said simply. "They always do."
The small dog shoved himself closer to Jinx’s thigh, tail wagging furiously, his tiny body vibrating with uncontainable joy.
Raven snorted. "You’ve got that damn animal magnetism even with strays." She reached down, scooped the mutt into her arms, and cooed at him. "Oh my gosh, you're such a cutie."
The dog’s tail whipped faster, spinning like a helicopter rotor about to lift off, while his big brown eyes stared up at her like she was the best thing in the world.
Raven glanced down at Jinx, her eyebrow raised. "This one just might come home with me."
Without waiting for a reply, she turned and disappeared back inside, cradling the little dog like a baby. Jinx pushed off the doorframe, stretching his long frame before following her into the small house. The safe house was tucked deep in the Venezuelan hills, far enough from prying eyes but close enough to danger.
Inside, Raven rifled through a crate and pulled out a can of meat, feeding the dog straight from her fingers while Jinx splashed cold water over his face at the rusted basin in the corner. Outside, the cicadas hummed, the damp jungle pressing against the house like a living thing.
Giving him the time to finish washing in private, Raven had taken the dog outside to let him relievehimself. When she returned, the puppy practically glued himself to her heels.
No question about it, the damn thing was going home with her.
Jinx dropped into one of the battered wooden chairs at the small table. Together, they cracked open several cans of food, making do with whatever supplies he’d stockpiled. Raven, for her part, continued to sneak the puppy bites from her fingers like a doting mother.
It should’ve felt like a simple camp meal, but Jinx’s mind churned beneath the surface, locked on things far deadlier than their quiet meal.
He tapped the comm device in his ear. "Brando, are you there?"
"I’m always here," Brando replied, a chuckle rolling through the line. "What do you need?"
"I need information on every single one of Ortega’s enforcers. I want to know who’s in his inner circle. I want names, faces, ranks, and how long they’ve been with him. I want to know everything."
"Already working on it. Figured you’d want a full dossier before you walked into that hornet’s nest."
Raven tapped her earpiece, her voice smooth and purposeful. "Can you get that intel on the military unit?"
Brando sighed. "I might be able to scrape together some information, but those people are ghosts. They keep to themselves. Getting pictures or matching names to faces won’t be easy without it."
"I can get pictures," Raven said without hesitation. "I can go back to the same spot we were yesterday. I can get close enough with the telescopic lens."
