I want to get out of here.
I headed straight for Alejandro’s house. Frank dropped me at the curb with a look that saidgo, and I didn’t waste a second. My whole body still hurt, every breath scraping my throat, but nothing was stopping me.
I went in through the front door, barely registering the living room, the quiet, the smell of antiseptic drifting from upstairs. Itook the stairs two at a time, gut twisting tight, and walked into the makeshift hospital they’d built in the front bedroom.
Alejandro lay unconscious against stark white sheets, and Christ—he looked so fucking pale. There were sterile dressings wrapped around his burned forearm, bandages across his ribs, and a brace immobilizing his broken arm. Scarring already mottled his chest where heat had kissed too close. Machines beeped beside him—portable units, wires snaking across his chest, oxygen mask fogging faintly with each shallow breath. The skin on his chest was burned, right across the tattooed bird, and I knew when he woke up, he’d be happy it was half gone, despite the scars and pain.
Everard Jenkins—our doctor for hire and owner of the black van and an entire team—stood beside the bed. Older man, white hair like bleached bone, expression as unreadable and dead-eyed as ever. He looked up as I entered, giving the faintest smile.
“He’s coming around,” Jenkins murmured. “Won’t be long now.” He inclined his head, clinical, detached. “I hear from his sister that he was an actual hero. Go figure.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, the ache in my chest. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “Heis.”
I sank into the same chair I’d occupied on and off for the last forty-eight hours, the one that still held the shape of my exhaustion. The fire had nearly taken him from me—and every time I blinked, I saw it again, felt the heat, saw him shutting the door in my face, choosing to die. I sat there and tried to figure out where the hell I went from here. Was I still a cop? Was I Cave now? Was I anything that made sense anymore?
Marisol slipped into the room without a sound, her arms folded tight across her chest. She looked smaller than usual, shadows under her eyes, worry pulling at her mouth.
She lowered herself into the chair beside me. “He did everything he could,” she said, her gaze fixed on her brother, asif sheer will might drag him back to consciousness. “He got me out. Saved my unborn babies. Pulled us out of hell when he was just a kid himself.”
I nodded, throat thick. “I know.”
“So young,” she murmured. “Too young for what he carried. But he saved us. Me. My babies. And it cost him pieces of himself.” Then her gaze flicked to me—sharp, assessing. “And you,” she said, leaning back, “you’re still a cop.” It wasn’t a question. It was a warning. A test. Maybe both.
I didn’t even realize my hand was reaching for hers until my fingers closed around it. She startled, then stilled.
“I love your brother,” I said.
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t pull away. It was only the second time I’d said the words out loud, and both times, it had felt like the truth catching up to me.
Marisol exhaled slowly, her gaze dropping to our joined hands. When she spoke again, her voice had changed—quieter, older, worn around the edges.
“You know he wasn’t supposed to survive,” she said. “Not just the cartel. Not just Raven. Before all of that.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
She swallowed; eyes fixed on Alejandro’s still chest. “When he was little—five, maybe six—he stopped talking. Completely. Wouldn’t eat unless I fed him. Wouldn’t sleep unless I held him. Mama thought someone had hurt him, and Papa dismissed him as broken.” A tremor moved through her. “He wasn’t broken. He was terrified. He’d seen Papa hurt Mama—heard everything that the adults pretended wasn’t happening in our house. And instead of protecting him, Papa blamed him for being quiet.”
My heart twisted. “Marisol…”
“He was the one who protectedme,” she continued, her voice cracking. “Even when he was shaking, even when he was so scared he couldn’t speak. He’d stand in front of me when Papagot angry. He’d take the hits. He learned early how to make himself look bigger than he was, so he became the target.”
She wiped at her eyes angrily, refusing to cry. “Then Raven killed Papa, after Papa told him my brother was clever. Raven told him he was strong. Told him fear was proof he was alive. Gave him purpose. Twisted him into something useful and cruel.”
Her hand tightened around mine. “But that’s not all he is. And it’s not all he came from. He’s been protecting his family his whole damn life, Levi. Even when no one protected him.”
My throat closed. I looked at him—the burns, the bruises, the scars old and new—and saw, for the first time, the child she was describing. The one who stepped between danger and the people he loved, even when it cost him everything.
Marisol whispered, “So if you say you love him… then you better mean it. Because he won’t survive losing someone he cares about. Not again.”
“I do,” I whispered back. “I mean it.”
A low sound pulled me out of my thoughts—rough, broken, dragged up from somewhere deep. At first, I thought it was the machines acting up, but then Alejandro’s fingers twitched against the blanket.
I was on my feet instantly.
His eyelids fluttered, breath hitching under the oxygen mask. He tried to move, winced, then sucked in a shaky inhale as though his lungs didn’t know how to work yet.
“Alejandro?” I said, leaning over him. “Hey. I’m here.”
