"Lock your door, Seraphina."
My full name in his mouth. Rough. Desperate. Like he had to let himself say it just once before putting the mask back on.
Then he's gone.
I close the door. Lean against it. My body is still humming. The memory of his voice, his hands, the way he moved in that parking lot — efficient, trained, lethal. The way it made me feel. Alive. Electric. Wet.
All week I've been telling myself he's safe. That the collar is glass between me and something I can't afford to touch. That wanting him is fine because he's a priest, which means he's the opposite of Julian, which means my pattern isn't repeating, which means I'm healing, which means the flutter in my chest is harmless.
But the man who just swept my cottage for vulnerabilities and told me to call him instead of the police is not who I thought he was. The man who put a professional on his knees with one motion is not a painting behind glass. The collar isn't protection. It's camouflage.
Father Gabriel is the most dangerous man I've met since Julian.
And I want him more than I ever wanted Julian. And that terrifies me more than the men in the sedan.
I press my thumb to the burn scar. Abuela Rosa was right. I run too hot.
But she never told me what to do when I met someone who runs hotter.
5 - Gabriel
The collar is in the glove compartment. The suit fits like I never took it off.
I stand beside the valet stand at the waterfront estate, watching October light catch on Biscayne Bay. The Italian fabric sits on my shoulders like memory, custom-tailored, cut like a weapon, the kind of suit that changes how people see you before you open your mouth. After three years of rough clerical cloth, the silk lining feels obscene against my skin. Every movement reminds me what I gave up. What I'm walking back into.
Marisol sent it. Of course she kept my measurements. Of course she knew exactly what would make me look like the prince returning.
The valet takes my keys with the deference reserved for men in suits like this. Not the casual efficiency they'd show a priest. This is the choreographed respect for someone who matters, someone whose family name is etched into the building behind us.
I walk toward the entrance and the room opens before I reach it. Not the doors, those are already open, staff positioned like sentries. The space itself opens, the way it always did. People shift without realizing, creating a corridor. Security nods with recognition they can't quite place. The suit speaks before I do:Delgado.
The venue is one of those Old Miami estates that hosted Kennedy and Capone with equal discretion. Colonial arches, marble that stays cool despite the heat, gardens that needconstant maintenance. The Foundation has rented it for the night, though rented is the wrong word. When you're the Delgados, doors open. Venues appear. The city reshapes itself around your needs.
"Gabriel."
Marisol finds me before I'm three steps inside. She's luminous, not trying, just is. Golden in something that probably has a designer's name I'd recognize if I still paid attention. She's in her element here, running the Foundation with the same intensity she brings to everything. My sister, who I abandoned with a corpse and a secret, pulling me into her orbit like gravity.
"You came." She reaches up, straightens my lapel with the automatic gesture of someone who's been fixing men's collars her whole life. First our father's, now mine. "Try not to look like someone's torturing you."
"I was aiming for 'man who hasn't worn a suit in years,'" I say. "But torture works too."
She laughs, not the polite society laugh she uses with donors, but the real one—sharp and quick, gone before anyone notices. Her hand drops from my lapel to my arm, squeezing once before letting go. A gesture that says more than the words we aren't speaking.
She links her arm through mine, and for a moment we're children again, before the money got complicated, before our mother died, before I killed someone and ran to God. "Come on. People are asking about you."
Her new husband Nico appears at her shoulder, steady presence, military precision translated into a dinner jacket. We exchange a nod that carries more than words. Soldier to soldier, each serving different generals. His hand rests on Marisol's lower back with the unconscious protectiveness of a man who's chosen his territory.
"Good to see you," he says, and means it.
"Likewise."
The room spreads before us. Champagne and calculation, silk and strategy. The legitimate face of families whose money started in darker soil. Everyone here knows it. No one mentions it. That's the beauty of a charity gala, washing reputation through tax-deductible philanthropy.
They come in waves. The donors, the politicians, the people who matter in rooms where checks get written. They want to see the Delgado son, the priest who might not be a priest anymore, the heir who abdicated maybe returning.
"Gabriel Delgado." A man in his sixties, extending his hand, someone who clearly knew my father. "Heard you were back from… where was it? Homestead?"
"Still there, actually." The handshake is automatic: firm, brief, the exact pressure that saysI could hurt you but choose not to. My father taught me that grip when I was twelve. The muscle memory is perfect. "Just here for Marisol."
