Because what else is there to do? Run? To where? Back to the penthouse where Nico will file a report about my "inadvisable choices"? Back to the streets where my mother's ghost sings on Thursday nights?
The front door stands open, revealing marble floors that gleam like ice despite the heat. Through the house, I can see the terrace overlooking the cliff's edge and the ocean beyond. I can smell Cesar's cologne already: that expensive French scentmixing with salt air, too heavy for the heat, like everything about him is slightly wrong for this climate.
Cesar stands on the terrace, silhouetted against the afternoon sun. Not rushing to greet me with fake concern. Not maintaining his uncle performance. Just waiting. I hear ice clink in a glass.
I cross through the house, my heels clicking on marble that feels cool despite the temperature. Each step echoes in the emptiness.
Up close, his face is different. The warm mask he's worn for thirty years has been set aside like a coat he no longer needs. What's underneath isn't evil, exactly. It's worse. It's practical.
"Where's my father?"
"At the estate. Where he's been all along." He doesn't even pretend to apologize. "Sit down, Mari."
"You lied."
"Yes. I needed you here, and I knew mentioning Jorge would bring you." He settles into a chair like we're having cocktails rather than whatever this is. "You're predictable that way: always coming for the people who hurt you."
The truth of that lands sharp. My father. Gabriel. Even Nico, in his way. I do keep returning to sources of pain like they might transform into something else.
"Or maybe I just have more hope than survival instinct," I say. "But you wouldn't understand that. You gave up decency decades ago."
His smile is thin, pleased that I'm reading him clearly now. "Thirty years. That's a long time to wait, cariña."
Behind me, I hear the car pull away. The engine fades, leaving just the sound of waves hitting rocks below. Movement in my peripheral vision: shapes in the house. Three men, maybe four. We're not alone.
"Cleaning up Delgado messes while being told I'm not blood, not family." He takes a sip from his glass: whiskey, neat, because of course he drinks like a man who's never doubted his own choices. "And what's my reward? Jorge is leaving everything to you. The disaster daughter who can't stay sober for a week."
Three men emerge from the house, positioning themselves between me and the exit. Not threatening, exactly. Just present. Just blocking any escape route I might consider.
"And the body? The Zayas girl?"
For the first time, something flickers across his face. Not guilt. Annoyance, like I'm asking about methodology when we should be discussing results.
"Collateral." The word drops between us like a stone in still water.
A woman's life reduced to a line item in his strategic planning. I think about her on that velvet couch, positioned exactly like eight years ago, her skin cooling under my fingers while Cesar watched from somewhere, calculating the psychological damage to the decimal point.
"I knew it would break you the same way it broke you at eighteen,” he continues, his smile thin, satisfied. “And it did. Until that Rosetti soldier started rebuilding you into something inconvenient. To be strong. Get sober. I hadn't counted on that."
The sun drops lower behind him, casting his face in shadow. The ocean beyond the cliff is already darkening, that deep blue that comes before black. I can hear it now: not gentle waves but violence, water meeting rock with force that never stops.
"What now?" I ask, though I already know. The men. The isolated location. The cliff. The ocean that everyone knows I fear.
He looks almost sad. Not genuinely; Cesar doesn't do genuine anymore. But the performance of sadness, muscle memory from decades of pretending to care.
"Now you become another Delgado tragedy. The troubled heiress, overwhelmed by scandal and grief, takes her own life with a bullet to the brain rather than face justice for the Zayas girl." He stands, whiskey finished, glass set down with finality. "Your father will grieve but accept it. He's always expected you to self-destruct eventually. Your brother will blame himself, might even leave the priesthood. And I'll manage the family's interests through this difficult time."
He's not even watching me closely. That's the tell. He's positioned me perfectly: his men blocking the house, the cliff at my back, and he knows—everyone knows—that Marisol Delgado doesn't go near water. Not since her mother died. He's seen me flinch from swimming pools at parties, refuse boats, avoid the beach. He's using my fear as a fourth wall.
My eyes track to the low stone wall behind him. Beyond it, the cliff drops to rocks and churning water. Twenty feet? Thirty? The sound alone makes my skin crawl—that constant, hungry roar that used to mean safety when my mother was alive and has meant terror ever since. He's positioned me with my back to the house and his men, the ocean behind him like a wall he knows I'll never cross.
"Suicide." The word tastes like copper in my mouth.
"The narrative writes itself. Blood means everything in this world, but I’ll make sure that thirty years of loyalty means more."
His men shift closer. Not rushing. They don't need to rush. I'm already caught between them and the void I've spent eight years avoiding.
The tactical mind Nico built in me runs the calculation, fragmented and desperate but still functioning. Three men blocking the house: too many, too strong. Cesar between me and the wall, though wait. God, did he just shift left? There's a gapnow, two steps maybe, if I can make it, if the stones are rough enough to grip.
