She stops ten feet away. Those blue eyes, the vibrant version of Luca’s, find mine. The distance between us loaded with five weeks of silence that feels like years.
“You look tired,” she says.
“You look good.”
“I know.” The ghost of a smirk. The smirk that used to precede someone getting hurt.
Neither of us moves. The ten feet of leaf-strewn path might as well be an ocean.
Then Marisol stands.
Sofia’s eyes shift, and I tense, ready to move if this goes wrong. She studies Marisol with the assessment I taught her, looking for weaknesses, for threats. Something passes between the two women that I’m not part of. Recognition. Not of faces since they’ve never met. Something deeper. Two women who’ve survived similar storms in different oceans.
My body positions itself to intervene if needed, protective instinct coiling tight.
Marisol steps forward. Gentle but not tentative. “I’m Marisol.”
“I know who you are.” Sofia’s gaze flicks to me, then back. My sister’s words come like knife throws. Precise, potentially lethal. “You’re the reason my brother finally got his ass to Chicago to meet me.”
“He was coming anyway.”
“For Marco’s circus. Not for me.” Sofia tilts her head. “You made him brave enough to go behind the Don’s back.”
Marisol tilts her head right back. “You make it sound like defying your brother is a bad thing.”
Sofia laughs. Short, surprised. The sound hits me somewhere deep. I’ve heard my sister laugh before, but not like this. Freer. Less guarded.
“I like you,” Sofia says simply.
“Good. Because your brother is annoyingly stoic and I need allies.”
I’m standing here watching two women I love find each other acceptable, and the feeling in my chest is so unfamiliar it takes me a moment to identify.
Hope. Uncomplicated, undefended hope.
We sit on the bench. Sofia on one end, Marisol on the other, me literally between them. But within minutes they’ve angled toward each other, talking across me like I’ve become pleasantly irrelevant.
I count threats automatically. Monitor foot traffic. Two dog walkers, one runner, all civilians.
Sofia asks about Miami. Marisol tells her the real version. The Calypso Room. The cliff. The swim. Sofia listens with her whole body, the way she used to dance. Completely absorbed.
“Your mother taught you to swim,” Sofia says, something catching in her voice.
“Yes. And I stopped after she died.”
“Until you jumped into the ocean to save your own life.”
“Technically I jumped to avoid being murdered. The saving myself was a bonus.”
Sofia shakes her head. Looks at me. “Where did you find her?”
“She was my assignment.”
“She was your wake-up call.” No cruelty, just fact. “You needed someone who wouldn’t let you disappear into duty.”
She’s right. I did.
Marisol asks what Sofia does now. Where she lives. Not the family’s questions about when she’s coming back. Just: who are you now?
