I go downstairs to the kitchen with the bag, set it by the door. The wooden spoon sits on the counter where it always does, next to the oil, next to Rosa's recipe card that Gabriel found for me. Rosa's handwriting loops across the yellowed paper, each letter formed by the hand that taught me to cook, to feed people, to make kitchens into homes.
I stand between the bag and the counter. The exit and the anchor. Then I cross over and grab the wooden spoon, snatching up the recipe card too.
Isa appears in the doorway. Not dramatically, she's just there, the way people at La Sirena materialize when they've been watching longer than you realize. Her eyes take in the scene: me, the bag, the kitchen that's become mine. She reads it instantly because Isa reads everything instantly.
She doesn't speak. Doesn't ask what happened or where I'm going. She walks to the cabinet, pulls down a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. Pours both. Sets one in front of me, keeps one. Drinks.
The silence stretches between us. Isa's not someone who fills quiet with words. She stands there in her black clothes, hair pulled back severe as always, and waits.
When she finally speaks, her voice is flat, controlled. "Running is the smart move."
I look up, surprised by the honesty.
"A woman with your skill set could disappear, survive indefinitely. You have the money now, the leverage. You don't need this place. Don't need the danger. Logical analysis says run."
She takes another sip, eyes never leaving mine.
"But here's the data on Gabriel. Years of nothing. Not failed attempts at relationships, not brief flings that didn't work out. Nothing. He went from killing that woman to the seminary without stopping. No one before you, no one during. Just performance and penance and cold showers. Years of absolute fucking nothing."
The whiskey burns my throat as I finally take a drink.
"Then you." Isa's voice doesn't warm, stays matter-of-fact. "I've watched him these past weeks. It's not just that he's fucking you, though that's remarkable enough given the man used to flog himself for impure thoughts. It's that he's present. Actually here, not performing being here."
She sets down her glass.
"So here's how this goes. You leave now, fine. That's your choice. But if you leave, you never come back. Never return. You don't get to run when things get hard and return when you miss the kitchen. You break him once by leaving, you don't get a second shot. I'll make sure of that."
The ultimatum hangs between us, delivered without emotion. Isa's not making an appeal. She's stating facts.
"You think I'd break him by leaving?"
She doesn't bother answering, just huffs out a laugh then finishes her whiskey in one swallow. "Make your choice. But understand: walking out that door is permanent. There's no coming back from that."
I look at the packed bag by the door. Everything I need to disappear, to become someone new in another city where I can finally leave my past behind. Then I thump Rosa’s wooden spoon against my palm, rhythmically.
Rosa never ran from a kitchen in her life. When money was tight, she cooked. When her husband died, she cooked. When I showed up at nine years old while my mother worked three jobs, she put me on a step stool and taught me to cook. Her response to everything was to feed people, to make wherever she stood into a place that nourished. Rosa's kitchen was about feeding everyone who walked through the door.
Julian programmed me to run. To pack efficiently, to leave without looking back, to survive by disappearing. But Rosa programmed me first: to stay, to cook, to make a home.
I turn my back on the bag. Not dramatically, not with finality, just the simple action of turning away from something wrong. Then I toy with the wooden spoon, feel its familiar weight, and place it back on the counter where it belongs.
Isa watches all of this without expression. When I meet her eyes, she gives one nod. Not approval, not welcome, just acknowledgment. Noted.
She turns to leave, then pauses. "Finish the whiskey. You look like you need it."
Then she's gone, her footsteps fading down the hallway, and I'm alone in the kitchen past three in the morning with two glasses of whiskey and a decision that feels less like victory and more like exhaustion.
I drink what's left in my glass, then pour another. The alcohol burns but doesn't numb what needs numbing. I sink to thekitchen floor, the same floor where Gabriel and I fought and fucked after our confrontation about secrets. The tile is cold through my clothes. The lingering smell of garlic mixes with whiskey on my breath. The refrigerator hums its mechanical lullaby while I sit here with empty glasses and the knowledge that I almost ran.
The kitchen floor holds me as dawn approaches, cold and hard. Gray light starts bleeding through the windows, that uncertain pre-sunrise that makes everything look like a memory of itself.
I haven't moved from this spot. Not because leaving is wrong. Isa was right, it's the smart move. My past is gone, I have the chance to move on before I get involved with another dangerous man. A woman with forged documents and stolen millions could disappear into America's sprawl and never surface again.
I’m still here because running is what Julian's program tells me to do. The only way to resist Julian's programming is refusing to execute it. That's not healing or victory, just the decision to stop being Julian's wind-up toy, even if that means staying in the path of an oncoming storm.
Gabriel will wake soon. He'll reach for me and find empty space, and some part of him will know immediately what happened. He knows what running looks like.
I wonder if he'll be angry. If those hands will clench into fists. If the man who killed with his bare hands will surface, or if the priest will return with his careful distance and measured restraint.
