She absorbs it, asks smart follow-up questions I don't fully answer. Every word between us is professional, cold, exactly what I'm forcing it to be.
Third attempt: She stretches, my t-shirt riding up to reveal the bruises I left on her hips three nights ago. My marks. My claim. Still visible while I pretend I have no right to them. Then she stands directly in my path to the balcony, blocking the door with her body. Forces eye contact.
"Are we going to talk about last night?"
"There's nothing to talk about."
"You slept in the guest room."
"The tactical situation requires…"
"Don't." The first flash of the real Marisol. Heat. Defiance. Life. "Don't use tactics as an excuse. You looked at me like I was a stranger and walked away. I want to know why."
I meet her eyes. Hold them. The answer is right there:Because you sounded like Sofia. Because I watched your lightgo out and recognized my fingerprints on the switch. Because I turn bright things dark.
"The Zayas threat changes the operational parameters," I say instead. "I need to maintain professional focus."
She stares at me, reading the lie, deciding whether to call it.
She doesn't. Just nods, steps aside, goes back to her laptop. Something in me screams at the easy surrender, at how quickly she's learned not to fight for things that matter.
Every cell in my body screams to go to her. My feet actually move, one step toward her before I lock them down. The soldier wins. The man howls.
I walk to the balcony. Shut the door. Breathe Miami heat while something cold settles in my chest.
The memory comes uninvited on the balcony, the same one that's haunted me for months now, made fresh by seeing its echo in Marisol.
Sofia, six months before she left. Training session at the compound. She could disarm men twice her size, read a room like I could, kill without hesitation. I was proud. I didn't see what it was costing her.
Three months before she left: I found her in the compound kitchen at 2 AM. Sitting in the dark.
"Do you ever wonder who I'd be if you hadn't trained me?" Her eyes had gone flat, the same tactical blankness I trained into her. "I used to design dresses. Did you know that? Before you started training me. I used to draw gowns. Beautiful ones. I was good."
I didn't know.
"When's the last time you played piano, Nico?"
I couldn't remember.
"That's what this family does,” she told me. “Takes the soft parts and cuts them out. And we let it happen because we think hard means safe."
Not long after that, she left. And I started counting days. I've replayed these conversations a thousand times, but seeing Marisol transform the same way makes them fresh wounds again.
I come back to the present. Through the glass, I can see Marisol at the kitchen island. Working. Calm. Efficient. The chaotic imp extinct, replaced by something strategic and cold.
Yesterday she was sunshine. Ridiculous nicknames and laughter that hid wounds. Alive in a way I'd forgotten people could be.
Now she's me.
She learned by watching. Absorbed how I operate: the control, the compartmentalization, the way I put feeling in a box and run on calculation. When everything fell apart, she reached for the only survival tool she'd seen work: mine.
Sofia did ballet. Now she doesn't.
Marisol was a wild sunshower. Now she isn't.
The common denominator is me. My proximity destroys soft things. I don't soften. I erode. I teach people to survive by teaching them to stop feeling.
My phone rings. Marco.
