All Chapters of Caged By His Love: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

JETHRO'S POVWe moved into position just after four in the afternoon, three hours before Rodrigo's predicted arrival, every team member exactly where Brandon's weeks of surveillance told us they needed to be.I sat in the command vehicle beside Melanie, watching the live feed from the cameras Brandon's team had finally managed to place closer to the barn, my whole body humming with the particular, focused calm that always settled over me right before everything else fell away except the task in front of me."You're quiet," Melanie said, her hand finding mine."I'm focused." I squeezed her fingers. "This is the part where I stop being your husband for a few hours and become something else. I need you to understand that isn't me pulling away from you. It's me making sure I come back to you.""I understand," she said, and I believed her, understood that she'd learned, these past months, the particular shape of what this fight required from both of us.At 6:47, the dark sedan appeared on

MELANIE'S POVTen days passed before anyone used the word memorial out loud, and even then, it was Melissa who finally said it, gently, sitting beside me on the porch where I'd taken to spending most of my waking hours, watching the driveway as though Jethro might simply walk up it one afternoon."Mel," she said quietly. "I think we need to talk about a service. Not a funeral, not yet, not without a body. But something. People need somewhere to put their grief.""I'm not ready," I said, my voice hollow."I know." She took my hand. "I'm not asking you to be ready. I'm asking you to let other people grieve too. Brandon. Rocco. Jethro's mother, who's been calling every day asking what she can do."Jethro's mother. I hadn't let myself think too much about her, about the particular horror of a woman who'd already survived so much cruelty now facing the possible loss of the son she'd fought so hard to raise safely."Is she coming?" I asked."She wants to. Along with Allison. I told them to

MELANIE'S POV I was four months along when the first sign of lingering danger reached us, a reminder that even with Rodrigo gone, his network hadn't entirely dissolved along with him. Brandon arrived at the house unannounced one evening, his expression grim enough that Allison immediately ushered Jethro's mother and my own mother into the kitchen, sensing instinctively that whatever he'd come to say wasn't meant for a crowded room. "We intercepted a message," he said, once it was just the two of us and Melissa in the study. "One of Salvador's remaining associates. He's furious about Rodrigo's death, apparently blames you specifically for it." My hand moved instinctively to my stomach. "What kind of message?" "Threats. Nothing concrete yet, no specific plan we've identified. But I don't want to take chances, not with you this vulnerable." Brandon's jaw tightened. "I want security increased again. Significantly." "I thought this was over," I said, exhaustion creeping into my

MELANIE'S POV The call came at 2:14 in the morning, four months after Kamira's birth, and I knew before I'd even fully answered it that something had fundamentally shifted. "Melanie." Brandon's voice, tight with an emotion I couldn't immediately place. "I need you to sit down." "Brandon, what's wrong? What happened?" "Nothing's wrong." A pause, his voice cracking slightly. "Melanie, we found him. We found Jethro. He's alive." The world seemed to tilt entirely off its axis. I gripped the edge of Kamira's crib, staring blankly at the wall, unable to process the words I'd waited so desperately to hear for eight impossible months. "That's not possible," I whispered. "Brandon, that's not—" "A hospital in a small coastal town, three countries away. Unidentified male, found near the coast weeks after the explosion, severe burns, head trauma. He's been in and out of consciousness, unable to give them his identity until recently. A nurse finally managed to get a name out of him three day

MELANIE'S POVWe brought Jethro home three weeks later, once Dr. Alvarez confirmed he was stable enough to travel, and I spent the entire flight watching him stare out the window at the clouds with the particular quiet curiosity of a man rediscovering a world he couldn't quite remember belonging to."Does any of this feel familiar?" I asked, as the plane began its descent toward the city that had been his home for most of his adult life."Pieces," he admitted. "The skyline, maybe. I keep having these flashes — nothing concrete, just impressions. A feeling of belonging somewhere, without the specific memory attached to it.""That's progress," I said, trying to keep my voice steady, hopeful, even though eight months of grief had left me uncertain how much hope I had left to spend.My mother was waiting at the house with Kamira when we arrived, and I watched Jethro's face as he first laid eyes on his daughter, searching desperately for some flicker of recognition, some instinctive pull t