Page 50 of Beyond Redemption

Olive carried one. Stella carried the other.

“I can’t take it. She’s just so cute,” Olive said. “I feel like we haven’t been able to spend as much time together as we usually do, even though we’ve been together this whole time. Is it weird that I miss her?”

“Things will settle down and you can both get back into a routine. You’ll see.”

She nodded, grinned at Stella, and then looked forward, her small smile fading away. She stopped, breathing out. “I’m glad they’re here. I’ve missed them. But…”

“It’s a lot. I get it,” I said. “This is the hard part. It’ll just get easier from here.”

“You hope…”

“I know,” I said, leaning my head against hers.

Bodhi opened the door and waited for us to walk through the doorway. Once inside, the Longhouse hummed with tension that clearly hadn’t dissipated in our absence. If anything, it had only gotten worse. Conversations stalled when we entered the back room, and eyes tracked us without trying to hide it. Too many volatile men in one space, even if they’d learned over the years to control the monsters lying dormant inside of them. There were too many unspoken hierarchies, too much history compressed into a single room.

Bodhi guided Olive toward her spot on the sofa, positioning himself just close enough to be felt without crowding her.

“I’ve got her,” Thomas said, taking Stella.

She dozed off as soon as her head settled against his shoulder, a sleepy frown scrunching her face. That small domestic ease made my chest tighten. He had never planned on becoming a father and had never truly trusted himself with the role, yet it turned out he was remarkably good at it—decisive, protective, able to separate urgency from emotion. His brothers didn’t know that man. They believed he’d acted without considering them when, in reality, he’d understood them all too well. He knew that without grief clouding their judgment, they would have agreed with his conclusion. But he also knew he didn’t have the time to wait for that clarity. As a father first and an agent second, he understood what they could not—that the only viable choice would make him the enemy in his brothers’ eyes, and that he could live with that far more easily than he could stomach asking forgiveness for inaction.

“Walk with me,” he said, already moving.

I followed him into the main area of the Longhouse, down the narrow walkway between the rows of bunks, and out the door.

The desert had cooled quickly after sunset, the air carrying that same dry, metallic bite that I experienced at night onour back patio in Chinle, sharp enough to register with every breath. Security lights cast long, pale halos across the packed ground, drawing moths and gnats into slow, relentless orbits. Somewhere beyond the perimeter fence, an engine idled. Closer in, boots scuffed softly, voices murmured, the compound settling into its nocturnal rhythm.

Thomas stood with his shoulders squared, holding Stella securely against his chest. He didn’t rush, but there was a tension in his posture, a rigidity that had been present since we got the word about Marymount and hadn’t dissipated. He looked straight ahead, jaw set, eyes fixed forward as if the empty space before him required his full attention. The night pressed in around us, quiet enough that every small sound felt amplified. The hum of the lights, the faint chirr of insects, the soft brush of fabric when he adjusted his grip on Stella caught my attention, even though I knew they shouldn’t.

“How did it go?” I asked.

“Trenton and Taylor say they’re done with me. They never want to see me again after this,” he said, trying to keep the emotion from his voice.

He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t press. I’d learned to recognize the way grief sat within my husband when it had nowhere to go. Thomas was never explosive or loud when he was in pain. He kept it contained, drawing it inward, the same way he approached a frustrating case. On the surface, he remained calm. Beneath that, it edged into self-loathing. To everyone else, even his brothers, it felt like indifference. I was the only one who recognized it for what it was, and even then, it took me years to understand.

I could see that, while I was gone, whatever his brothers had said had impaled him deeper than anything else. Not because their words were cruel, but because they were final, and Thomasbelieved them because he agreed. As their older brother, he hated anyone who hurt them, even when that person was him.

Stella stirred once from beneath her blanket, then settled, her cheek warm against his shirt, oblivious to the broken heart beneath it. He adjusted her without breaking stride, careful, practiced, the motion automatic. Fatherhood had given him a place to put his hands when the rest of him had to stay still.

Thomas swayed and gently bounced Stella a few times, holding himself together by sheer will alone. She was already asleep, but he needed the movement, an outlet or a distraction, I wasn’t sure which. I watched as grief overwhelmed him while he refused to allow it to break the surface.

Unable to watch him suffer, I spoke, “One day, they’ll understand.”

He exhaled. “Not this time, Liis.”

I stepped even closer, resting my hand briefly against his forearm. “They need time, but they’ll come around.”

He nodded, but neither of us believed he meant it.

Inside, voices rose. Not quite shouting, but the sound of too many people talking at once, frustration stacking without release.

“We should go back in,” I said.

Thomas nodded again, pressing a kiss into Stella’s hair before opening the door.

We nodded to Camille and the children as we passed and then stepped into the back room. Everyone was on their feet. We caught Olive mid-sentence, in a conversation that had escalated in our absence, in a direction we never would have allowed.

“I just don’t know if that’s the right move,” Olive said. “I need more time to—”