I scroll. Another photo. A school game. He's taller than he should be for his age, all limbs and momentum, a basketball tucked under one arm like it belongs there. My stomach drops. Basketball. It hits me all at once. Amauri Strout! He was my favorite player. The realization is so sudden it steals my breath.
Fucking Jenna.
What was she thinking?
She named our son after my favorite basketball player.
The memory shifts, unbidden, to when she searched me out a few days afterthatnight.
Her eyes are frantic; her hands shake when she wraps them around a coffee cup like it's the only solid thing left in her life. She's asked around, probably heard the rumors that I'm on campus to sell coke for my uncle. She's not looking for comfort. She's looking for silence. For reassurance that what she did—what she survived—will stay buried. I can't be seen with her, especially not in the state she's in. I can't take her to my place. I'm still living under my uncle's roof, where every wall listens, every move is watched. So I take her for a drive.
I can tell she's scared. Not just of what happened, not just of what we did, but of me. The desert stretches out ahead of us, empty and endless.
Weeks later, she confessed that she thought I'd kill her.
As if I ever could.
The realization hits me now like a fist to the gut.
Fuck.
The memories come faster.
We learn how to exist together in pieces. First restaurants off the Strip where nobody asks questions if you tip well. Long walks through parks at night, neon bleeding into green, pretending the world is softer than it is. Museums. Quiet bars. Public spaces where hands brush instead of entwine, because discretion matters. It's not supposed to matter. A few weeks. A way for her to breathe again. Instead, we fall.
Not loudly. Not foolishly.
Deeply.
She laughs more with me than anyone I've ever known. Sleeps as the nightmares loosen their grip when she's pressed against my chest. Trusts me in ways I don't deserve. I book the best suite, not to impress her, but because I want her to feel safe. Chosen. Like she deserves beauty instead of an aftermath. She trusts me with her virginity, and the weight of that settles into my bones immediately.
She's my first real commitment. And I think—arrogantly, foolishly—that I'll be her last. I start making plans. Quiet ones. Dangerous ones. How I'll introduce her to my family. How I'll shield her from what I'm becoming. How we can carve out a life that belongs to us instead of obligation.
And now, here we are. She is in my hotel; I'm on a plane to fucking Caracas to get our son back. What the hell happened?
The question loops in my head like static as I watch the landscape blur beneath us through the small oval window. We're hours out, time enough for a whole life to shuffle itself around and leave me here with nothing but questions and half-baked regrets. I press my forehead to the cool glass for a breath. Let it wash over me. I don't expect answers. Just enough peace to think without the knot in my chest strangling every thought. I close my eyes. The hum of the engines is steady, too steady. It starts to burrow in, a low rhythm that dulls sharp edges. My eyelids feel heavier by the second.
I should be hashing out a strategy. Route, contacts, worst-case scenarios, contingency plans. But my brain has wandered back to her again. The way she used to look at me, unguarded. The sound of her laughter, the way it filled space I didn't know needed filling.
Sleep comes quietly at first. A heaviness behind my eyes. Then deeper.
I drift.
Not into peaceful dreams. Not exactly. More like a fugue, fragments of memory and fear tangled together. A hotel room. Her hair, falling over the pillow. Her first laugh at something dumb I said. The way she trusted me with her silence. And somewhere beneath it all: Amauri's face.
That sharp, unmistakable trace of me in his expression.
I don't sleep long, but long enough. A few hours. Enough that when I wake, my head is clear, the edge honed instead of dulled. My back aches when I straighten. I should've gone to the bed in the rear of the jet, but sleep was an accident I never intended. Memory dragged me under and only let me go when it was done with me. A flight attendant appears quietly and sets a tray in front of me. Eggs. Fruit. Bread. And most important of all, coffee, black. We're still over the ocean. The map on the screen confirms it, the curve of the earth stretching beneath us. My timer tells me what I already feel in my bones: one hour to landing.
I eat because discipline matters. Because bodies fail when you forget the basics. I drink the coffee slowly, letting the bitterness settle me back into the present. Then I work. I pull my phone from my pocket and open the files Gabe and Damiano sent while I was asleep. Photos. Satellite images. Security layouts. Names.
Aurelio Valverde. Officially, he's the Don now. Young enough to believe the title belongs to him outright. Smart enough to letpeople think that. Unofficially, his father still casts the longer shadow. Silvestre Valverde. I've met them both. Once, in Vegas. At a private event dressed up as charity. Crystal glasses. Tailored suits. Smiles that never reached the eyes. Aurelio was polite. Measured. Watching everything. Silvestre barely bothered with conversation, just studied me like I was a variable he hadn't decided how to solve yet. Ruthless men. Both of them.
Their cartel isn't subtle. They don't need to be. Their methods are effective because they're feared. Violence as communication. Excess as warning. If they've touched even a hair on Amauri's head… I stop the thought there. They won't have. Because if they have, none of this ends cleanly. Not for them. Not for anyone who helped.
I scroll through the compound layouts. Outer perimeter. Guard rotations. Internal structures. Living quarters separated from operations, smart, but predictable. I mark ingress points, potential blind spots, and places where arrogance creates gaps. Damiano's notes are precise. Gabe's intel confirms what I suspected. The Venezuelans didn't choose this target. Someone hired them. Someone made a mistake big enough to trace.
The plane begins its gradual descent, and the engines shift pitch. I lock the phone and lean back, rolling my shoulders once to ease the stiffness. Almost there.
