I almost laugh. The most romantic blessing a dying crime lord can offer.
I leave Papa sleeping, peaceful for the first time in months.
In the car, the estate receding behind us, the royal palms standing tall in the rearview, I'm emptied out. Every emotion I've hoarded for years poured out on Papa's chest.
What's left is quiet. Warm. Spacious.
Nico drives with one hand. I take the other.
"He said to keep you," I tell him.
The corner of Nico's mouth twitches. "High praise from a dying king."
"The highest. He doesn't even say that about his espresso machine."
An actual smile. Small, brief, but real.
"It's mine," I say quietly, testing the words. "The family. The empire. All of it."
"How does that feel?"
"Like swimming. Scary. And right."
I came to this estate a thousand times as a teenager, leaving smaller each time, compressed by expectations and failures. Today I'm leaving taller.
31 - Marisol
He drives, and I sit beside him. The silence isn’t empty. It’s full. Dense with everything that happened and everything that’s coming. The adrenaline is already transforming in my body, violence becoming something else, something that makes me press my thighs together. I watch his hands on the wheel. The same hands that delivered justice this morning, that will deliver something else entirely when we get home.
I reach across the console and take his hand. His fingers close around mine, still trembling slightly, the adrenaline working its way out. The small tremor reminds me he's human. I trace my thumb across his knuckles, feeling the slight swelling from impact.
We drive through Miami. The city gleaming, oblivious. Beautiful.
We drive in silence for a while. Not uncomfortable—just full. Processing.
I watch him in profile. The set of his jaw. The slight tension in his shoulders that means he's running tactical assessments even now, checking mirrors, noting exit routes. But there's something else too. A looseness I've never seen. Like killing Cesar finally untied a knot inside him.
"You okay?" I ask.
He considers the question. Really considers it, which is more than most people do.
"I’m okay."
"He was going to kill me," I say.
"Yes."
"So don't try to feel guilty. Feel whatever you actually feel."
His hand finds mine across the console. Squeezes.
"What I feel," he says, voice dropping, "is that you're alive. And I want to spend the next several hours proving it."
"When we get there," he says suddenly, his voice rough with everything he's holding back, "I'm going to fuck you until you forget everything but my name. Until the only marks on your body are mine."
The promise sends heat straight through me, pooling between my legs. I press my thighs together, already aching, already wet. The violence in the warehouse, the adrenaline, his proximity. It's all transforming into desperate need. I want his hands on me, want him to work out every bit of leftover darkness on my body until we both forget everything but each other.
"Drive faster," I tell him.
