"No."
"One was a tragedy. One was a war." I cross the room and put my hand flat against his chest, feel his heartbeat under my palm. "You're allowed to know the difference."
He covers my hand with his. We stand there while his pulse steadies under my fingers — slower than the hotel, slower thanthe church, slower than every moment of crisis that brought us here.
"You're not afraid of me," he says.
"I know exactly who you are," I tell him. "I made a list."
The laugh that comes out of him surprises us both. It's the real one — the one that transforms his face — and I file it away with all the others.
33 - Seraphina
The wooden spoon moves through Rosa’s sofrito in steady circles, anchoring me to this moment. Steam curls from the pot, carrying garlic and cilantro through La Sirena’s kitchen. The pernil has been in the oven for four hours. Another one to go. Sunday dinner for people who’ve seen me covered in blood, who’ve watched Gabriel kill for me, who still show up every week to eat what I cook.
I adjust the heat under the sofrito, dropping it lower. Rosa taught me to listen to the sizzle, to know when the onions surrender their sharpness and become something sweeter. My hands know this work even when my mind considers who will sit where, who will drink what, who might test me.
Because Marisol is coming.
Gabriel's sister, who helped him cover up a killing when she was eighteen. Who survived alone while he hid in a collar. Who married into the Rosetti family and built her own empire from wreckage. She and Nico have been in Chicago since the Markovic situation resolved, letting distance cool the heat.
I'm not afraid of her. I've faced worse than protective sisters.
But Marisol matters to Gabriel in ways that make my opinion irrelevant.
I scrape the bottom of the pot to keep it from sticking. My body stays calm while underneath, I'm braced. Ready.
Not for a fight. For an assessment from the one person whose verdict Gabriel can't dismiss.
The kitchen door doesn't open so much as detonate. Marisol arrives like weather, rearranging the atmosphere to accommodate her presence. She's holding an open champagne bottle like other people hold car keys.
"Gabriel."
She drops the champagne on the counter and grabs him, both hands wrapping around him. He catches her, holds on, and something passes between them that has nothing to do with words. His hands grasping her shoulders, her face pressed against his chest, the exhale that says you're here, you're really here.
Then she pulls back and turns to me, and I understand immediately why rooms reorganize themselves around Marisol Delgado. Her honey-colored eyes take in everything from my hand on the wooden spoon to the exact degree of heat under my pots to the way Gabriel positions himself slightly behind me.
"So you're the reason my brother finally took off that ridiculous collar." She picks up her champagne, takes a swig directly from the bottle, and starts circling me. "He smells different. Less like penance, more like someone's been cooking for him."
"Marisol," Gabriel starts.
"Shut up, I'm bonding." She waves him off without looking. "You know what I find interesting? You navigated some serious trouble without getting dead. That takes skill. The kind that comes from practice."
Nico appears in the doorway, quiet as smoke. His hand finds the small of Marisol's back, steadying without constraining. He nods at me. Brief, clipped, the greeting of a man who's already made his assessment.
“This is my emotionally-retarded gargoyle husband,” Marisol tells me. “Don’t be fooled by the short hair and military bearing. He’s actually quite nice.”
Suddenly, Nico sweeps Marisol down in a dramatic kiss, bending her backwards so she yelps. When he deposits her back on her feet, her face is flushed.
“See, quite nice,” she repeats.
“For a husband,” I say.
Marisol tilts her head to look at me. "You were married to Julian Whatsisname, from New York. Tell me about him.”
The name lands hard, but I don't flinch.
"What about him?" I ask.
