We drive away from the estate, her hand still in mine, the Mediterranean mansion shrinking in the rearview mirror. Thirty years of Cesar's careful construction. His patience. His planning. Building trust, manipulating Jorge, positioning himself as the natural heir to an empire he helped build but never owned.
He made one critical mistake, though. Just one, but it's going to cost him everything.
He thinks the game is still about manipulation and politics. Soft power and careful moves. He doesn't understand that the game has changed. That there's a soldier in the mix now, someone who doesn't see chess boards and political capital. Someone who sees targets and elimination vectors.
"What are you thinking?" Marisol asks, studying my profile.
"I'm thinking about Afghanistan. About how insurgents would embed themselves in communities for years, becoming trusted, essential. Then one day, they'd reveal their true purpose."
"And how did you handle them?"
The memory brings back copper and blood. "We don't negotiate with embedded threats. We identify them. Confirm the target. Then we eliminate them. No mercy, no second chances."
She's quiet, processing. Then: "Cesar's not some random insurgent. He's been part of my family longer than I've been alive."
"That makes him more dangerous, not less." The estate disappears completely behind us. "But it also makes him comfortable. Complacent. He thinks he's already won."
"Maybe he has."
"No." My voice carries absolute certainty. "He's already lost. He just doesn't know it yet. Because he made that one mistake. He let me see him. The real him, under all that performed warmth. And once I see a target clearly…"
I don't finish. Don't need to. She understands what I am now. Not just her protector, but something more primal. A hunter who's identified his prey. The monster she unleashed when she let me claim her.
Soldiers don't negotiate.
We eliminate.
And Cesar Vega just became a dead man walking.
22 - Nico
The ringtone cuts through darkness like a blade. At this hour, it’s not information. It’s a grenade with the pin already pulled.
Marco’s number glows on the screen. My body shifts to combat-ready before conscious thought engages, and Marisol murmurs beside me. The Don doesn’t call at 0214 hours for updates. Someone’s dead. An attack on the compound. One of my brothers down. Something’s happened with Sofia and Alexei.
“Yeah.” My voice comes out rough, prepared for casualty reports.
“Faith is in labor.” Marco’s tone is controlled, but there’s urgency bleeding through. “Started an hour ago. They’re at Northwestern Memorial.”
The relief hits so suddenly my hand actually trembles. Not death. Life. My nephew arriving, coming into the world.
Marisol’s body tenses against mine, reading my physical tells the way she reads threats—instinctively. Her honey eyes open, immediately scanning for danger. She’s learned to read my body the way I read a room.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” I shift the phone, my free hand finding her shoulder, thumb unconsciously tracing the mark I left there hours ago. “My brother’s wife is having her baby.”
She sits up, the sheet pooling at her waist. “You need to go to Chicago.”
Statement, not question. Of course I need to go. Luca’s child is arriving. The family is gathering like a unit responding to a priority call. It’s what Rosettis do.
Except.
Cesar’s eyes yesterday, calculating, measuring, identifying weakness. The way he touched Marisol’s face, claiming territory he doesn’t own. The framing for murder that hasn’t materialized yet but makes my trigger finger itch with certainty it’s coming. Every instinct screams that leaving my position now means returning to find her destroyed. Or discovering her body staged like the Zayas girl, another message written in death.
“I can’t come,” I tell Marco woodenly. “Not with the current threat level.”
“Stay,” he says, the single word carrying command authority. The Don ordering his soldier to maintain position. “I’ll set up video when the family assembles.”
