Good.
She trusted him.
That mattered.
“Give her everything she needs,” I said, voice steady and unyielding. “Make sure it’s provided — no delays.”
Yannis adjusted Daphne against his chest without looking at me.
“She’s my sister,” he replied quietly. “What do you expect? I’d die before letting anyone touch her again.”
The words were fact.
I studied him for a moment — assessing.
He wasn’t a child anymore.
He wasn’t just my son.
He was learning to carry weight.
I reached up and ruffled his hair — harder than necessary — an instinctive grounding gesture that blurred the line between father and commander.
“Make sure you prove it,” I said.
Then I said to Daphne — eyes wide, still rimmed red from tears but steady now because I was near.
“Sweetheart.”
I cupped her cheek gently. “I have to go get Mommy now.”
Her fingers tightened slightly around Yannis’s shirt.
“Yannis is going to take care of you. You’ll be safe here. Nobody gets through these walls.”
She swallowed.
“When will you and Mommy come back?”
The question hit harder than artillery.
It was grounded in fear.
It forced me to confront reality.
How long would this take?
Days? Weeks? Months?
I had fought wars before — dismantled criminal syndicates across continents — but those were calculated operations.
This was personal.
And personal wars are unpredictable.
California was enemy territory.
Vasquez knew the terrain.
