Except when I pass the church, I slow without meaning to. His car is in the lot. Light in his window. For a moment I imagine climbing those stairs, standing in his doorway, telling him about the black sedans and Reyes's hungry eyes and the way fear sits metallic in my mouth.
But that would mean admitting I need help. Admitting these worlds are already colliding.
I don't stop. This is my discipline. Maintaining the separation. Gabriel is Homestead: bruised knees and confessions in the dark and the way he gripped that doorframe hard enough to leave marks. Reyes is Miami: the vault and the vultures circling and Julian's ghost demanding payment.
The cottage welcomes me back. I lock both doors, check every window. Change immediately. Silk for cotton, heels for bare feet, the widow folded away with shaking hands.
I make tea with water that boils too long because I'm watching the window for headlights that slow. Stand at the counter noting every car that passes. The wooden spoon against the wall, Abuela Rosa's voice in my head: "You run hot, mija. Be careful not to burn everything you touch."
She meant the stove. She meant cooking. But maybe she saw what I'd become. A woman drawn to dangerous heat, who kneels in confessionals and plays with mob money and can't stop wanting men who could destroy her.
9 - Gabriel
She shows up at my door at ten PM Friday night with a bag over her shoulder and no explanation.
Not frightened. Not crying. Just composed, direct, practical. The bag hangs heavy from her shoulder, car keys dangling from her fingers, and her face says exactly one thing: I need something and I decided you're the person I'm asking.
Just two days ago she was down on her knees in the confessional. And now she's here, standing in my doorway with her hair down and that bag over her shoulder, and already her scent is invading my space. Vanilla and something darker, the same scent that clung to my clothes after she swallowed my cock.
My body responds immediately. Christ. She's been here ten seconds and already I'm getting hard.
Nobody comes to the rectory. It's my cell, my controlled space, my exercise in self-denial. Now she's standing in the middle of it, and every wall I've built feels like tissue paper.
I should send her somewhere else. A motel. Alma's spare room. Anywhere that isn't a priest's private quarters at night with no witnesses and my cock already remembering exactly how her throat felt working around me.
"Can I come in?" Her voice is calm, steady, but there's something underneath. That effort of holding composure when the ground is shifting. I recognize it because I've been living it since she walked into my life.
I step aside. Of course I step aside.
She sets the bag by the door, stands in my hallway, and I watch her read my life like a confession written on walls. The bare plaster, no photographs, no art. Just the crucifix over the doorway and nothing else. The wooden floor creaks under her feet. Boards I've walked for years that suddenly sound different with her weight on them.
Through the kitchen door: plain, clean, empty. Coffee maker that might as well be from the Stone Age, toaster, nothing that suggests food is anything but fuel. The rectory is always cold. I keep it that way. But with her here, I notice it. The October chill that makes her wrap her arms around herself.
Through the other doorway, the edge of my bedroom is visible. The hard mattress that's basically a board with a sheet, the pull-up bar bolted to the frame with worn grooves where my hands grip it every morning at 4 AM. She traces one with her finger, understanding without asking. Weights arranged on the floor like instruments of penance.
I see the moment she understands. This isn't minimalism as an aesthetic choice. This is a punishment.
She doesn't comment directly. Just: "Nice place. Very 'Spanish Inquisition chic.' Did the hair shirt come with it, or was that extra?"
The joke has edges, but underneath is something softer. Recognition, maybe.
I make coffee because I don't know what else to do with my hands. Hands that remember her hair twisted in them while she swallowed my cock. Her beans are still in my cabinet from when she brought them last week. I use them. She notices. Neither of us mentions it.
Kitchen table. Two chairs, one wobbles. She tells me the operational minimum while I pour coffee into mugs that haven't held anything but black necessity in years. She shifts in herchair and I track the movement, remembering those same hips pressed against the confessional door while I lost my mind.
"I was followed back from Miami." Her hands wrap around the mug, steady despite what she's saying. "Same type of cars as the parking lot men from last week. Professional. They know where my cottage is."
She pauses, weighs her words. "Tonight felt different. Closer. More deliberate. Like they're done watching and ready to move."
The men following her don't know what I am. What I was. They see a priest. They'll die seeing a priest if they come for her. My hands flex at my sides. I may not carry a weapon, but these hands remember exactly how to hurt someone who threatens what I care about.
"How many vehicles?" I ask, and my voice has already shifted to a flat register. "Did they approach you? Did they follow you here?"
She gives me the details, precise and clean. The priest recedes entirely. The other man takes over. Two cars, four men minimum, professional spacing, no approach yet but getting bolder. Classic intimidation escalating to action.
"You're staying here," I say. Not a question, not a command. Just the tone of a man who's assessed a threat and already decided how many bodies he's willing to leave.
She looks at me across my stark kitchen table, and the ghost of a smile crosses her face. "There he is," she says quietly.
