The silence stretches. I realize my hands are shaking.
Wyatt threads his fingers through mine and squeezes. He doesn’t say anything. His touch is enough.
“We continued Alejandro’s work after he died,” Arturo says eventually. “Clearing out the rot. Protecting the vulnerable. It doesn’t balance the scales—we know that. But it’s something.”
Vicente’s expression hardens into something colder. “Not everyone we dealt with was innocent, though. There was a man—American, a Texas oil baron—who’d been coming to Cancún for years. Had a taste for little girls. Used his money and connections to make it all disappear.” His voice goes flat, clinical. “Selena noticed the pattern and brought it to my attention. The day after his last visit to Mexico, he was found dead of an apparent stroke in his own bed. Died in his sleep, they said. All the evidence of his depraved habits open on his computer screen.”
I glance at Wyatt. He raises an eyebrow. Is this for my benefit? They know we’re listening.
“Getting his body back across the border, into his own house, into his own bed—that took some effort,” Vicente continues. “But no one was ever able to find evidence of foul play. Just a dead pervert whose habits got swept under the rug because he had photos of important people who didn’t want the truth to see the light of day.” A cold smile. “They’re like a fungus, men like him. You have to burn the whole house down to kill the spores.”
“You did this alone?” Nina asks.
“Arturo and I weren’t speaking then. This was... 2003, maybe 2004. We’d been estranged for years.” Vicente’s eyes cut to Arturo. “Though I suspect I wasn’t the only one clearing out rot during that time.”
Arturo’s jaw tightens. “No. You weren’t.”
Another long look passes between them. Old knowledge, never discussed.
“A young man came to me,” Arturo says after a moment. “His father owned a shipping empire. Used those routes to move women. Kept them in a facility he called ‘The Kennel.’“ His voice goes cold. “He took his son there as a boy. To make a man of him, he said.”
Vicente’s expression doesn’t change, but I see his hand curl into a fist.
“The son learned the business. Saw what his father was really doing. And he decided it had to end.” Arturo pauses. “The fire was ruled accidental. Faulty wiring in the poorly constructed building. All the women escaped. He did not.”
Vicente nods slowly. “Stavros?”
“Yes.”
“Purcell?” Arturo asks.
A single nod from Vicente.
I only recognize the one name, but the way they’re looking at each other—two men comparing notes on a shared vocation they’d never acknowledged—makes my skin crawl. And yet. The men they eliminated were men who hurt children. Men who used their money to buy immunity.
On screen, Nina’s posture shifts almost imperceptibly. “You’re telling me this openly. Why?”
“Because you asked about patterns. About the world we come from.” Vicente spreads his hands. “I’m a murderer, Dr. Palmer. I’ve never pretended otherwise. But I never harmed innocents. That was my line. The one thing I held onto when everything else went dark.”
“Everyone has their justifications.”
“Yes. And mine don’t excuse anything. I know that.” He pauses. “My one true regret—beyond the obvious—was trusting Gustavo. He was one of Alejandro’s rescues, actually, after us. We brought him into our operation, gave him a place, treated him like family. And he betrayed us.”
Arturo’s hand moves to Vicente’s knee. Steadying.
“The people we save don’t always stay saved,” Vicente says quietly. “That’s not a reason to stop. But it’s a lesson I learned too late.”
I file it away with everything else I don’t know how to reconcile. Monsters who rescue children. Killers who draw moral lines. Men who survived horrors and built empires and still couldn’t escape the patterns carved into them as boys.
The world doesn’t sort as cleanly as I want it to. Maybe it’s not supposed to.
Nina lets the silence hold for a moment before shifting direction. “I’d like to talk about the thirty years. The time you spent apart.”
Arturo’s hand is still on Vicente’s knee. Neither of them moves to break the contact.
“What would you like to know?” Vicente asks.
“I’m more interested in what Arturo has to say.” Nina’s focus shifts. “You’ve been quieter in our sessions. More guarded. I’d like to understand why.”
