Except Gunner's posture is wrong.
He stands beside the door, massive frame relaxed in a way I've never seen. Not guarding but hosting. Beside him, a man I don't recognize. Shorter than Gunner (everyone is), wearing a hoodie despite the Miami heat, laptop bag slung over one shoulder. Young, maybe mid-twenties, with expensive sneakers that say money but messy hair that says he doesn't care.
Gunner gives me his familiar nod. I'm cleared. Then he gives the stranger a different nod: professional respect. The distinction matters.
"This is Emilio Rosetti. Milo," Gunner says, using more words than usual. "Nico's cousin from New York."
Milo glances up from his phone, and there it is: the same sharp intelligence I saw in the Rosetti brothers at Il Lusso, just wrapped in Silicon Valley packaging instead of Armani: tech bro in a hoodie rather than mafioso in Armani. I recalibrate what "Rosetti" can mean.
"Hey."
That's it. But the way Gunner stands slightly behind him, the deference in his body language, this isn't just some relative visiting.
Upstairs, Logan's office door stands open. Unusual. He likes his boundaries, his controlled space. Gabriel's already inside, sitting across from Logan's desk in jeans and yesterday's t-shirt, hair still mussed from sleep.
"There you are," Gabriel says, and his smile makes my chest tight.
Milo barely glances around, already opening his laptop. "Should I wait for anyone else?"
"No," Logan says. "This is everyone who needs to know."
I stay in the doorway. Don't sit. Don't commit to either staying or leaving.
Milo's fingers fly across his keyboard. "So, Nico asked me to dig into the Markovic financial structure in South Florida. Theirlaundering channels, specifically." He turns the laptop so we can see the screen. "This is what I found."
The diagram looks like a spiderweb: accounts, shell companies, transfer routes. I recognize the structure immediately. It's identical to what I've been mapping for six months, trying to trace Julian's money. Except I only got a fraction of it.
Milo's eyes flick to Gabriel, then back to the screen. "The main pipeline goes through a hospitality group," he continues, highlighting a section with his cursor, his voice maintaining the same casual tone. "Been around forever, like forty years. Looks squeaky clean on paper, which makes it perfect for washing cash through legitimate business. The monthly flow is—" He whistles low. "Impressive."
He clicks to the next screen and leans back in his chair, stretching his arms overhead as the company name appears in bold:Delgado Holdings.
Gabriel goes completely still. Not surprise but the stillness of someone feeling the ground crack beneath them. His hands flatten against his thighs.
Logan's hand on the desk slowly closes into a fist. He's not shocked. He's calculating blast radius.
Milo keeps talking, oblivious to the temperature change. "Been running this way for decades. Really elegant setup actually. Money flows in through the clubs and restaurants, gets scrubbed through vendor payments and management fees, comes out clean on the other side. Textbook but, like, masterfully done."
"How much does Jorge know?" Logan's voice is perfectly controlled.
"All of it." Milo pulls up another document. "Look, his signature's on the original incorporation. He authorized the accounts. Jorge knows."
Gabriel stands abruptly, walks to the window. His back to us, shoulders rigid. From here, the Brickell skyline spreads out. Reyes's building visible among the towers.
"My father knew," Gabriel says. Flat. Not a question.
"Yeah," Milo confirms, still not reading the room. "The whole thing reports to Jorge Delgado. Well, through a wealth manager named Arturo Reyes, but Jorge knew everything. Jorge's the one who—"
The name Reyes slams into me. The office I just left. The coffee he specially ordered. The systems he praised.
The photograph.
My mind supplies the image with perfect clarity now: Reyes on the boat, champagne raised, and beside him the silver-haired man who must be Jorge Delgado. The posture of ownership suddenly makes sense. Gabriel's father, the same man whose money built Julian's empire, whose systems created the vault I'm trying to crack.
The ring on its chain burns against my chest. Julian's vault, Jorge's money, Reyes's office. The partition I built between my investigation and my life here wasn't a wall. It was a curtain, and someone just pulled it down.
I look at Gabriel, still at the window, and see his knuckles white against the sill. He didn't know. The shock in his stillness is genuine. But his name is still Delgado. The money is still Delgado. The framework that built my cage has his family's signature on every document.
"How long?" Logan asks. "The Markovic connection specifically."
