Page 39

“Trying to run out the back service exit. The team’s got him boxed in.” Yuri’s expression was one of grave satisfaction. “He’s not getting out of this building. Not this time.”

I felt the certainty of a debt finally about to be collected in full, of years of careful restraint about to give way to a satisfaction I’d earned every right to claim.

We stepped outside as the sky began to lighten, the desert cold and vast around the compound. Somewhere behind us, muffled shouting indicated Graham’s capture had finally been completed, though I found I cared considerably less about witnessing it than I did about the woman still held carefully against my side.

Camila stopped walking, turning to face me fully in the early light.

“I love you,” she said, literally knocking the breath out of me. “I mean it. Not because you rescued me tonight. Because of everything before that.”

Something in my chest finally cracked open completely.

“I love you,” I said. “I have for longer than I let myself admit. Tonight, standing in that cell, I understood exactly how completely I would have burned this entire world down if I’d lost you. I am not prepared to survive a version of my life that doesn’t include you.”

She reached up and touched my face, and I leaned into the touch the way I’d never allowed myself to lean into anyone’s comfort before.

“Take me home,” she said softly.

I lifted her carefully into my arms instead of simply walking beside her, ignoring her protest that she could manage on her own two feet, and carried her toward the waiting cars. She settled against my chest without further argument, her head tucked beneath my chin, one hand still resting protectively over her stomach.

Whatever came next—Graham’s prosecution, the fallout still rippling through federal investigations, the fragile alliance I’d struck with Hayes that would need careful navigation in the weeks ahead—none of it mattered as much as the woman in my arms. All of it would need my attention eventually, but none of it needed my attention right now.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Camila

I’d spent the morning before the service sitting on the edge of our bed with the shoebox of photographs open beside me, sorting through years of memories. Nikolai had found me there and, saying nothing, sat beside me and looked through them with me one at a time, asking quiet questions about each item.

Then we held the service on a quiet stretch of hillside overlooking the city, a kind of location Mateo would have hated for being too pretty and totally at odds with the noise he’d always seemed to need around him. I stood at the front of a small gathering, hands folded in front of me, staring at a photograph mounted beside an empty urn—empty because his remains had never been recovered, because Graham’s operation had swallowed too many boys entirely to leave anything behind for grieving families to bury. The photograph was one I’d chosen carefully from that same shoebox, Mateo mid-laugh at one of our barbecue evenings. It was exactly the version of him I wanted everyone here to remember.

The absence of a body had haunted me for four years. Standing here now, surrounded by people who’d fought alongside me to finally learn the truth, the absence felt easier on me.

Bianca stood beside me in a black dress, holding my hand tightly enough so that I could feel her own grief pressing through the grip. Val stood a few steps back with Dimitri, both of them quiet and respectful. Mikhail had come too, along with Viktor and Sebastian, which was an unexpected show of respect from men who’d spent months treating me as a complication before circumstances forced them to see me as family instead. Even Yuri stood near the back, arms crossed.

The rescued fighters surprised me most. Four of them had come—men I’d never met in person until today.

One of them, a quiet man named Teodoro who’d spent three years inside Graham’s operation before the raids finally freed him, approached me before the service started and said, “Your brother’s name came up sometimes. Among the ones who’d been there longest. They remembered him.”

I hadn’t expected that. I thanked him with a voice that was lower than I planned, and he simply nodded once, like he understood how much that small fact had meant.

Nikolai stood beside me throughout the ceremony. He was close enough that his presence alone steadied something in my chest that had been unsteady for years. When the tears finally broke loose during the second reading, he simply took my hand and held it, letting me cry as long as I wanted without suggesting I compose myself for the sake of the gathered crowd. His thumb moved slowly across my knuckles the entire time.

I cried for all four years I’d spent believing the wrong story. I cried for every night I’d fallen asleep hating a man who’d turned out to be nothing like the monster I’d built in my head. I cried for Mateo himself, for the stubborn, principled boy who’d died trying to help strangers escape a horror he could have simply survived by staying quiet.

Near the end of the service, Nikolai stepped forward to speak, surprising me.

“I didn’t know Mateo Alvarez,” he said, addressing the small crowd, his eyes finding mine briefly before returning to the gathered faces. “I wish I had. From everything I’ve learned about him since, he sounds like exactly the kind of man worth knowing.” He paused, finding his footing. “What I do know is what his sister did in his memory. Camila spent months building a case against an organization she believed had taken him, risking her life at every turn to expose corruption most reporters wouldn’t have touched. When she learned the truth, she didn’t retreat. She redirected everything she’d built toward the man actually responsible, and her reporting directly led federal agents to four facilities. Fighters walked free because Camila Alvarez refused to stop fighting, even after everything it cost her personally.”

He looked at me again then, the tender expression on his face melting me in a different way.

“Sylvester Graham’s entire trafficking network no longer exists because of her courage. Whatever else people say about how this all began, I want everyone here to understand exactly what Camila accomplished. Her brother would be proud of her. I certainly am.”

I’d spent months absorbing quiet accusations about my credibility, and hearing Nikolai stand in front of everyone who mattered and simply state the truth tightened my chest in the best way.

Bianca squeezed my hand tighter. Val was openly crying, and even Viktor, who rarely showed anything beyond dry amusement, nodded once in solemn acknowledgment. Teodoro and the other three fighters stood a little straighter as if Nikolai’s words had confirmed something they’d needed to hear about the woman whose reporting had ultimately freed them.

I didn’t trust my voice enough to respond aloud. I simply reached for Nikolai’s hand and held it as he returned to stand beside me.

I stood at the memorial a long while after most of the small crowd had dispersed, Nikolai beside me, both of us simply watching the light change. Bianca and Val lingered nearby for a while, giving us space without fully leaving, before eventually drifting toward the cars with quiet goodbyes and promises to check in soon.