I stand in my empty kitchen, looking at the mango bowl she bought, the spices she arranged, the wooden spoon she saved. Tomorrow this will all be memory. The rectory, the parish, Father Gabriel, all of it ending not with revelation but with geography.
When I turn around, Sera’s watching from the doorway. She’s seen the real thing now, not the priest playing at being dangerous, but the Delgado prince who grew up in rooms where violence was currency.
“Ready?” I ask.
She nods. No fear in her eyes. Just acceptance.
A car door slams outside.
I go to the window, pulling back the curtain just enough to see. A black SUV sits in the driveway, windows tinted dark as confession. But it isn’t the vehicle that makes my breath catch.
It’s the man unfolding himself from the driver’s side.
Gunner.
He hasn’t shrunk an inch. Six-foot-five of controlled violence stands in the golden evening light like a monument to what I’ve left behind. His shaved head catches the sun, dark stubble barely visible. The scar across his face — from left eyebrow to the bridge of his nose — tugs at his skin as he scans the property, a permanent reminder of the knife fight that should have killed him.
He wears all black, like always. A T-shirt stretched across a chest that has somehow gotten broader, as if he’s spent the last eight years turning himself into even more of a weapon. Combatboots. A leather jacket despite the Florida heat. His neck tattoos creep upward from his collar like dark vines reclaiming territory.
Sera comes to stand beside me. “That’s our ride?”
“That’s Gunner.”
She studies him through the glass. “He looks like he eats priests for breakfast.”
“He’s never been big on religion.”
Gunner’s pale gray eyes sweep the street, seeing things normal people miss. I’ve forgotten how unsettling those eyes are — like looking into smoke, bottomless, nothing you can read unless he wants you to.
“Let’s go,” I say, grabbing our bags.
Outside, the evening air is thick with coming rain. Gunner stands by the SUV, massive arms crossed over his chest. The ink on his forearms shifts with muscle — military imagery mixed with skulls, and on his right forearm, the face of Saint Michael, patron of warriors. His knuckles are a testament to violence — scarred, tattooed with symbols only people like us understand.
I stop a few feet away, Sera slightly behind me. Silence stretches between us like a minefield.
Gunner looks me over, taking in the jeans, the T-shirt, no collar. Those smoke-gray eyes catalog everything that has changed, everything that hasn’t.
“Gabriel.” His voice is gravel on steel.
“Gunner.”
I saw him a month ago, briefly, while I performed the last rites over a bleeding body, but we didn’t share a word. It’s been years since I heard him speak.
Another long moment passes. Then he reaches out one scarred hand. I take it. His grip is crushing, deliberate. A reminder.
“Still hit like you used to?” he asks.
“Harder.”
The corner of his mouth twitches — the closest thing to a smile I’ve ever seen from him. He releases my hand, gaze shifting to Sera.
“Her?”
“Sera.” I step aside slightly. “She’s with me.”
Gunner studies her with the same intensity he’s given me, looking for threats, for weaknesses. Sera doesn’t flinch under the scrutiny. She meets those pale eyes.
He nods once. “Car’s secure. Sweep completed. Route mapped.”
