"The money was good. But that's not really it." He shakes his head. "Héctor looked me in the eye and said I was the most important man in the Delgado organization, and they didn't even know it." A pause. "He was right."
Wren speaks. One sentence, flat and clear. "People died because of what you did."
Jimmy looks at her. The first real emotion crosses his face — not guilt, exactly. Something adjacent to it.
"Andrei Cebotari. Good man. He got too close, so I told the Zayas. They handled it." He says it like he's reporting a weather event. "The assault on the Gilded Lily — that was my intel. I knew the evacuation protocol. I knew where Logan would send the non-combatants."
His eyes move between us.
"You were supposed to die there," he says to Wren. "Not you specifically. Just anyone in the building. Collateral damage."
She holds his gaze. Doesn't flinch. Her hand tightens on mine, once, and that's the only tell.
"One more thing," Jimmy says. Quieter now, like this is the part he actually means. "Santiago Zayas."
The name settles in the concrete room.
"He won't stop. Santiago's not like the others — he enjoyed the assault. I could hear it when he reported back. The violence, the fear — he's not fighting a war. He's playing a game. And now that he's seen your people, seen what you care about—"
His eyes go to Wren and stay there.
"He always remembers. He keeps a list of everyone who interests him, and he comes back when it suits him. Not for territory. Not for money. Just to see what you look like when everything breaks." He shakes his head. "That's the monster you've got left, even after this."
The room holds the silence after that.
"Is that all?" I ask.
"That's all." Then, a last flicker of self-justification: "Loyalty. You want to talk about loyalty? I gave three years to this family."
"You did," I say. "And then you gave the Zayas everything we'd built."
His jaw tightens. He looks at his hands.
"We're mirrors," I say. "You're right about that."
Jimmy looks up.
"But you made a choice. People died because of that choice."
"And you've never killed anyone?" His voice has no heat. Just exhaustion. "We're both killers, Logan. The difference is who signs our paychecks."
"The difference is loyalty."
That lands. I watch it land. Something in Jimmy's face gives. Not dramatically. Just a small, final yielding.
"I was loyal for three years," he says. Quieter now. "And it got me nothing."
"It got you a family that would have gone to the wall for you. You just couldn't see it."
He doesn't answer that. The silence that follows is its own kind of verdict.
"Is there anything else? Anything we need to know before this ends?" I ask.
He thinks. "Tell them it wasn't personal. The people at the Gilded Lily. Marisol and all them. I didn't hate them. I just…wanted more."
"I'll tell them," I say.
I won't.
