Before she can say anything, a mechanical click sounds behind us.
Something slides into place with a soft, final sound, like a small door locking.
I turn, craning my head toward the source just as another muted hum kicks on. A panel along the wall lights faintly, heat indicators blinking to life.
Looks like dinner.
“Come sit,” I say, nodding toward the cases stacked nearby. “I’ll tell you what happened.”
My stomach chooses that moment to growl, low and traitorous. I ignore it, but Saint doesn’t miss anything.
“I need water,” she says flatly. “Or things are going to get real ugly real fast.”
She moves before I can respond, slipping between pallets with purpose, eyes scanning labels meant for the service deck above. Shefinds what she’s looking for quickly, hauling out two large bottles and tossing one to me while I shift a few cases into something resembling seats.
We drink in silence, the kind that doesn’t press but waits. Cold water burns its way down, settling my nerves, grounding me back in my body.
When we’re done, I cap the bottle and rest my forearms on my knees.
“That night,” I say, then pause, recalibrating even now. “It wasn’t a job. It was a favor.”
Saint doesn’t interrupt. She rarely does when she senses something buried under the words.
“Mateo Serrano called me,” I continue. “He was a politician by then. Ambitious. Careful. To him, I was former military. Special forces. The kind you’re not allowed to name or admit exist.”
I let out a breath through my nose, the memory settling into place.
“I never had to correct him. All he knew was that I wasn’t allowed to talk about my work. That part was true. He didn’t need to know I’d traded orders and shitty pay for contracts and blood.”
Mateo had called because he was scared. Not theatrically. Not dramatically. The way men get scared when the rumors are solid and coming from the wrong mouths. He’d heard there would be an attempt on his life. He wanted someone he trusted nearby. Someone invisible.
“A plus-one,” I say quietly. “That was how he framed it. Security for a night.”
My sister, Lucía, had been too pregnant to travel. The rumors made it worse. Mateo wouldn’t risk her, not then. So, I went instead. It wasn’t Guild-sanctioned. No handlers.No backup. Just family doing what family does when things start circling.
“A dinner party,” I say. “Eighteen guests. No obvious enemies. No raised voices. No political opponents or tense silences.”
The night had been almost boring.
They ate. They talked. People laughed. Nothing happened.
Mateo apologized afterward, embarrassed by his own paranoia. He joked about wasting my evening, said he’d overreacted. I told him it was fine. That it was what family was for.
We were riding in the back of the limo when he asked me if he’d pulled me away from anything important.
I remember smirking.
“As a matter of fact,” I’d told him, “you had.”
I’d been thinking of Saint then. Of the island. Imagined the way she would be asleep waiting for me, one leg kicked out from under the sheet, her body turned just enough that it felt like an invitation. Like a beacon sayingcome back alive.
I never finished the thought.
Mateo started coughing. Then gasping. His breath hitched, sharp and wrong. His lips went blue fast, veins in his neck darkening like ink spreading under skin.
I shouted at the driver to get to the nearest hospital and hauled him down onto the seat, already moving. This wasn’t a seizure. I knew that the moment I saw his eyes.
There was a medical kit in the compartment. I tore through it, hands steady, heart pounding. Activated charcoal. Antihistamines. An EpiPen.
