I cross to him, my heels echoing on concrete. Take his face in my hands. His face with its clenched jaw and the spatter I don't look at and don't avoid. His skin is warm under my palms, and even now, even with blood on his hands, my body responds to his proximity. The pull between us hasn't diminished. If anything, watching him destroy the man who tried to kill me has intensified it. Later, when we're alone, when the adrenaline transforms into something else, I'll show him exactly how much his protection means to me.
I hold his face and look at him. Letting him see that I see. All of it. The soldier and the killer and the man who climbed down a cliff calling my name.
He closes his eyes and leans into my hands.
There’s movement behind us as Gabriel steps forward from the shadows, his face unreadable. Whatever he's feeling is locked behind composure that rivals Nico's.
He walks to Cesar's body. Steady steps. The walk of a man approaching an altar.
He kneels.
My brother, the priest, the broken man, kneeling beside the man who used our guilt to control us for years. His knees hit the dusty concrete with a soft thud. He makes the sign of the cross. His lips move. Latin words coming automatically, the muscle memory of faith.
Last rites. For a man who tried to murder his sister. For a man Gabriel should hate. Does hate, I can see it in the rigid line of his shoulders.
But he prays anyway. Because that's what priests do. Even when mercy is formality. Even when grace is extended to someone who never extended it to others.
The warehouse is silent except for Gabriel's Latin prayer and the distant sound of the ocean through the loading dock.
The ritual is beautiful. Terrible. My brother in perfect miniature. A man of God performing sacred rites over a body still warm, meaning every word and hating that he means it.
Gabriel finishes. Rises. His knees dusty from the concrete.
"Do you think God heard?"
A long pause. "I think God and I have a complicated relationship."
Something passes between Gabriel and me. Not forgiveness. Not yet. Not reconciliation. But recognition. Two peoplecarrying the same weight on opposite ends, finally close enough to see each other clearly.
He loved me enough to stay away. I hated him enough to survive without him. Both were wrong. Both were necessary.
I reach out and take my brother's hand. This is the first time I've touched him in eight years.
He squeezes back, his hand trembling.
A moment. The three of us in the warehouse. The soldier with blood on his hands. The priest with a prayer on his lips. The woman who jumped and swam.
Gunner appears in the doorway, completely filling it. Silent, waiting. Ready to handle the cleanup, the disappearance, the story that will be told. This is what men like Gunner do, and I’m so grateful to my old friend I could cry.
Nico nods to him. They exchange the briefest communication. Two soldiers, one task, understood.
I walk out of the warehouse into Miami sunlight. The heat hits like baptism, thick and humid, carrying salt and new beginnings. Behind me, Nico will handle details. Gabriel will return to St.Augustine's and kneel in a different building. Gunner will make this room look like nothing happened.
I stand in the sun and breathe. The humidity that usually oppresses me feels like a blanket today, warm and encompassing.
It's over. The man who tried to destroy me is dead. The frame will unravel. The truth will emerge.
For the first time in eight years, there's nothing sealed behind a door. No secret rotting in a locked room. No brother in exile. No uncle with a knife behind his smile.
Just sunlight. Just Miami. Just the beginning of whatever comes next.
Behind me, footsteps. Nico emerges wearing a fresh shirt. His hands are clean, but I see the shadow of what happened in the set of his jaw, the careful way he moves.
He stops when he sees me. Standing in the sun. Eyes closed.
I look at him. "Take me home."
30 - Marisol
