He pockets the phone, but his leg starts bouncing instead. Energy with nowhere to go. I recognize the pattern—it’s the same defensive energy he showed earlier when Nina brought up how we could be together while she heals, how we didn’t have to wait for her. She didn’t just mean sex, either, though I’m not sure he realizes that. Or maybe he does and that’s the issue.
You aren’t just my boyfriends, right? You’re each other’s.
The way he’d frozen. The way his face had shuttered closed, that careful non-expression he wears when something strikes too near the bone. And that painful admission: It’s harder for me to let myself be what I am.
“You could sit closer,” I say. “Nobody here gives a shit.”
“I’m fine where I am.”
“Right. Because maintaining tactical distance is really necessary in a surgical center waiting room.”
His jaw tightens. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Point out that you’re being ridiculous?”
“Don’t push.” He glances at the other people in the waiting room—an older couple, a woman with her teenage daughter, a man reading a paperback. “Not here.”
I want to call it the same old dance—in private he’ll kiss me like he’s drowning, in public he keeps distance. But watching him vibrate with anxiety about Nina, I wonder if I’m making his stress about me.
The woman at reception calls someone’s name. The older couple stands, following a nurse through double doors. Chris watches them go, something flickering across his face.
“Relax,” I tell him. “It’s a simple procedure. She’ll be out in an hour.”
“I know the timeline.”
Of course he does. He’s probably memorized every possible complication, every statistical risk. It’s what makes him good at what he does—processing anxiety through information and contingency plans rather than panic.
“You worried about something specific?” I ask. “Or just the general concept of her being unconscious?”
He’s quiet for a moment. His voice drops when he finally speaks. “Rafael Marcano.”
Neither of us speaks for a moment.
“Still a ghost,” I say. “Mason’s tracking him but there’s nothing concrete.”
“That’s what worries me.” Chris finally moves to the seat right across from me, voice dropping as he leans forward, elbows on his knees. Not quite closing the distance between us, but acknowledging this isn’t a conversation for public consumption. “Been thinking about the timeline since yesterday.”
“Volkov’s accounts lighting up six months ago.”
He nods. “Right when Rafael’s name starts surfacing. Could be Serbian money trying to establish new routes after Bogdan.”
We both know who likely killed Bogdan Corluka, but that’s not a conversation for a hospital waiting room. Vicente and Arturo aren’t exactly hiding—their Los Feliz compound is practically public knowledge in certain circles. Getting close to them is another matter entirely.
“Or could be someone else,” I say. “Someone with old grievances.”
Chris holds my gaze intently, tracking where I’m going. “Yakuza.”
“Power vacuum in Mexico. Perfect time to move in.” I keep my voice low. “After what Vicente and Arturo did to their man?—”
“The art collection. Haruki-kai’s oyabun.” Chris’s jaw tightens.
I’ve never seen the pieces myself—the tattooed skin Vicente and Arturo flayed from that yakuza enforcer and mounted in custom frames like museum exhibits. But I’ve heard enough descriptions to picture them hanging on those compound walls. Expensive. Grotesque. A message written in flesh and ink.
Not violence for violence’s sake. Theater. A guarantee that everyone knows what happens when you cross Vicente Amador and Arturo Flores.
And every time I think about it, I circle back to the same question: how smart is it, really, putting Nina in a room with men capable of that level of calculated brutality? Then again, they’re on our side now, supposedly. And if Nina becomes valuable enough to them as their therapist—if the intel keeps flowing—maybe they’ll care about keeping her safe.
I hope.
