He's right. I did know. Not the specifics, not the names, but the shape of it. The water was always dirty. That knowledge is part of why I left.
“Well, now they’re going after someone I care about.”
“Let me guess,” he says, his eyes narrowing shrewdly. “She has something in her possession that they believe should be in theirs.”
I can’t admit that I don’t know the details, so I let the silence sit between us, watching his frail chest move up and down.
"The Markovic relationship is strictly business," Jorge eventually says, adjusting the oxygen tube at his nose. "Whatever they're doing to recover stolen assets, that's their affair, not ours. The father is disciplined. Dragoslav understands that patience is a business strategy. The son is different. Cristian wants to prove something."
"How do you separate that? How do you do business with people who—"
"Boxes." He taps his temple with one thin finger. "Everything in its proper box. The Markovics as partners exist here." His lefthand makes a square in the air. "Whatever else they do exists there." Right hand, another square. "The boxes don't touch. That's how empires survive, Gabriel. Clean separation."
My chest constricts. The word echoes through me, and suddenly I'm twenty again, the weight of that night pressing down on me, already building the walls. Already separating what happened from who I need to be in the morning.
The priest lives in one compartment: collar, prayers, service, the performance of holiness. The man who was there when Elena died exists in another, locked and guarded. The hunger that makes me hard when Sera walks past, that makes me grip doorframes to keep from grabbing her, that has its own sealed room.
I've been living Jorge's architecture for my entire life without knowing I inherited the blueprint.
"You understand," Jorge says, reading my face. "I can see it. You always understood better than your sister."
My hands clench at my sides. He's right, and the recognition makes bile rise in my throat. Father Gabriel and Gabriel Delgado. I kept them separate, told myself the collar erased the blood. Just like Jorge keeps "business partner" separate from "the family hunting my woman."
"Understanding and accepting are different things."
"Are they?" He shifts against the pillows, a grimace of pain quickly suppressed. "You've been gone. Not dead. Gone. Living in your little church, playing priest, pretending the Delgado name doesn't exist. Tell me that's not its own kind of box."
The truth of it makes my jaw clench harder.
Jorge studies me with those sharp eyes, the mind still razor-edged despite the morphine, despite the cancer eating him from inside.
"Are you staying this time?" The question carries weight, maybe hope. "This interest in family business. These questions.Are you back, or is this another visit before you run to your church?"
I don't answer immediately. Can't. Because I don't know. The collar sits in a nightstand drawer at La Sirena, but I haven't thrown it away. The rectory in Homestead still holds my few possessions. I'm neither priest nor prince, caught between identities that no longer hold their shape.
"Answer the question, mijo. Are you staying?"
I turn toward the door without answering. Let him read whatever he wants in the silence. Behind me, machines beep steadily, tracking the heartbeat of a king whose empire runs on logic I understand too well.
The front door closes behind me with finality. I can't go back to La Sirena yet, can't face Sera with Jorge's mathematics still echoing in my head. My feet find the old path to the jacaranda tree, my palm scraping against bark that's grown rough with years. The Florida heat presses down, thick with humidity that makes breathing feel like drowning.
I make the call from beneath branches that still hold our childhood scars.
My sister answers on the second ring. She was always there for me.
"Gabriel? Everything okay?"
"Do you know anything about a family called the Markovics? Dad's been in business with them for years."
Silence. Then a long exhale that carries across a thousand miles.
"You’re calling for business? Jesus, Gabriel, I thought maybe you wanted to chat.”
“I’m just… the Markovics are going after Se—someone I care about. I just want to know everything I can about them.”
“Well, whoever they are, they probably help fund our lifestyle. You left. I stayed. What did you think paid for LaSirena's renovation? For the lawyers when I got arrested those times? For everything?"
The weight of it settles on my shoulders.
