"Started spitting up blood.Dumped him outside his place."Paco's grin widens, like he's sharing a joke only he understands."Message sent and received."
Bile crawls up my throat.I swallow it down, force my face into something resembling approval.My lips feel frozen, uncooperative."Next time, send me a text."
Paco's gaze slides past my shoulder—slow, deliberate.I watch his eyes track the wine glasses still sitting on the table, the dishes piled in the sink, the faint smell of garlic and tomato sauce lingering in the air.
Remains of the dinner we ate in silence before we visited the cemetery.
His expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind his eyes.Suspicion.
Then it's gone, buried under a lazy grin.
He taps the doorframe twice with his knuckles."See you at the meet."
The door closes.I stay there, hand still on the frame, until I hear his footsteps fade down the hallway.Count to ten.Then twenty.
When I'm sure he's gone, I close my eyes and bang my head on the door frame.
Hard.
Adena
The shower hisses behind me as I crack the door open.My pulse hammers in my throat.He’s sitting in the kitchen staring at his weapon on the table.
He still hasn’t moved when I slip out of the bathroom; the gun has his complete attention.
His gaze finally lifts, unfocused at first, then his hands flatten against the table, palms spread like he’s trying to brace himself.“Luis is dead,” he says.“He didn’t survive his injuries.”
Dead.The word ricochets through me.
My mind scrambles.Am I supposed to react?Laugh?Make a joke for whoever is listening?
None of that seems to matter right now, not when Jagger is staring at his FN like it offers a solution.
I’ve never been good at comforting people, worse at knowing what to say when something is beyond repair.I didn’t grow up learning the language of empathy—just the language of survival.
But if there’s anything he needs right now, it’s to know I’m not sitting here in judgment.
I stand without thinking, move to the kitchen, and start praying as I switch on the coffee machine.
Lord, I can’t imagine what this is doing to him.You know I’m lousy at playing comforter, but You are my source of comfort.Let me pour out some of that onto him in Your name.
The coffee machine hisses to life, filling the silence with something gentle, something human.My hands work deliberately: pour, tilt, breathe.When the crema settles, I place the cup of warmed milk in front of him.
Just like Silas did the first night I arrived at Jericho, still wondering what on earth I was doing at a private security company disguised as a working ranch in North Dakota.
He blinks.His brow lifts in genuine, unguarded surprise.His fingers hover over the cup, suspended.The confusion in his eyes is raw, unfiltered—a man trying to translate a gesture he doesn’t have a reference for.
He’s not the only one.I don’t understand any of this either.
But I know when I’m being nudged by something bigger than me, so I inch my chair closer.“Drink it.”
He reaches for the mug before he looks up at me.
“Stay with me tonight,” he says.
His voice is guttural, but it isn’t a proposition.It’s a pitiful plea from a desperate man sitting across from a gun, shadowed by guilt heavy enough to crush him.
My gaze follows one scar from shoulder to wrist.Every line and every tattoo on his body is a story.Every inch of him is a warning.
