"And if she chooses to leave?"
"Then we let her go peacefully."
"Just like that?"
I walk to the window overlooking the gardens, thinking about Madison's face when she realized the scope of what I'd done. The betrayal in her eyes, the way she pulled away from my touch as if I'd burned her.
"Have you ever cared about someone, Emilio? Really cared, not just wanted them or needed them for something?"
"I suppose."
"Then you understand that sometimes protecting someone means letting them make choices that hurt you."
"This could hurt more than your feelings, boss. This could hurt the business."
He's right, of course. If Madison goes to the authorities with what she knows, it won't just be inconvenient. It could be catastrophic. Names, locations, methods of operation. She's observed enough over the past months to piece together a substantial portion of my network.
But the alternative is unthinkable.
I've spent years becoming the kind of man who can make hard decisions without hesitation. Who can eliminate threats efficiently and sleep well afterward. Who can separate emotion from necessity and choose the path that ensures survival, regardless of the cost.
Madison has somehow made me soft. And the truly disturbing part is that I don't want to fix it.
"What about contingencies?" Emilio asks. "If she does talk, if the authorities start investigating, what do we do?"
"Then we activate protocols. Clean house, relocate key operations, burn anything that can be traced back to us."
"That would take months to rebuild."
"Then we rebuild."
"Or?"
"Or we don't." I turn back to face him. "There are other ways to make a living, Emilio. Legal ways."
The shock on his face would be amusing under different circumstances. "You're talking about walking away? From everything?"
"I'm talking about the possibility that some things are more important than business."
"Like what?" he asks.
Like the way Madison laughs when she's genuinely happy. Like the fierce independence she showed when she decided to renovate that broken house with her own hands. Like the way she offers coffee to dangerous strangers and thinks tourism can save a village that's been dying for decades. Like the way she makes me want to be the man she thought she was falling in love with, instead of the man I actually am.
"Like having something real," I say instead.
Emilio studies my face for a long moment. "You've fallen for her."
"That's irrelevant."
"Is it? Because from where I'm sitting, it seems to be the only thing driving your decisions lately."
"Perhaps that's not entirely a bad thing," I say quietly.
"Boss—"
"Have you ever considered that maybe this life we've built, the violence, the constant vigilance, the inability to trust anyone completely, maybe it's not sustainable?"
"It's kept us alive. It's made us rich. It's given us power."
