Chapter 12
From below, the building breathes with its Sunday ritual. I track the sounds as afternoon falls to evening. Voices rising from the kitchen, pots clanging, warm laughter carrying up through the floor.
The smell has been climbing the stairs for hours, slipping under the door like an invitation I haven't received. My stomach clenches with a hunger that has nothing to do with food. It's the hunger of hearing family when you're not part of it, of smelling home when you're locked outside.
I know what will happen below as soon as the club closes.
The Sunday dinner. Their sacred weekly gathering that I've heard referenced in fragments.
Adrian mentioning it when he brought me food, the wistful way he said Gunner hadn't come down to a single one since I arrived — the first Sunday dinners he's missed in nine years.
Three Sundays I've been in this building.
Three Sundays I haven't been invited to their table.
The realization settles low and heavy. Not quite hurt, not quite surprise. More like the slow recognition of a truth I should have seen earlier. I press my palm against his shirt where it drapes over the desk chair, the bougainvillea handprint faded but still visible.
The club music ends and the voices below shift, congregating toward one end of the building. Ice rattles in glasses. Heavy crystal from the sound. Chairs scraping against wood. The family preparing to sit down together while I remain here, suspended between captor and guest.
My feet decide for me. I'm sliding into my shoes, hand on the door handle, body already in motion. Not with any plan. Just restless need, the urge to be closer to those voices even if I can't join them.
The back stairs echo under my feet, each step taking me deeper into the building's working heart.
The smell of cooking is stronger here. Mojo pork, I would guess, the garlic-citrus marinade that would make anyone's mouth water.
But underneath it, something else. Flan maybe, that burnt sugar sweetness that means dessert's already waiting.
I reach the bottom landing and pause. The warmth from the kitchen reaches even here, competing with the air-conditioned chill of the hallway.
The back corridor stretches ahead, every fluorescent blazing instead of the dimmer evening setting.
To my left, the staff cubby area. Coat hooks, several work phones plugged into a charging station.
I walk slowly, drinking in the sounds. Past the laundry room where I've been washing my few clothes, where his shirts sometimes hang beside mine like a strange domestic tableau.
Past the back garden door, sealed tight against the Miami heat.
Past the security office, dark behind its small window.
The voices are clearer now, coming from the far end of the hallway.
The private dining room door stands slightly ajar.
Not wide open, just an inch and a half of gap where someone, probably carrying dishes back to the kitchen, didn't pull it fully closed.
Through that slice, I can see fragments of what I'm missing.
The edge of a long wooden table, scarred but polished.
The back of someone's head, dark hair, broad shoulders in a white shirt that pulls slightly when he moves.
The woman beside him, just a partial profile and her hand on his arm, her fingers tracing absent patterns on his sleeve.
The visible slice shows me maybe fifteen percent of the room, but the voices carry through the gap unmuffled.
"Told you the lemon would make the difference, Sera," a woman's voice I don't recognize, soft but pleased.
"You were right." Replies the woman, Sera. "The market on Eighth had beautiful ones this week."
A chair scrapes. Ice clinks against crystal. Someone refilling glasses, the sound of whiskey or wine being poured.
Adrian's voice rises above the others. "Did I tell you about the couple last night? The ones who requested 'My Heart Will Go On' for their anniversary?"
Groans from several voices at once.
"I know, I know," Adrian continues, and I can hear the smile warming his words. "But then, plot twist, they wanted it performed as death metal."
The laughter that follows is real, the kind that comes from people who've been laughing together for years. It rolls through the gap in the door and lands heavy in my chest. My hand goes to my sternum, pressing against the ache that blooms there.
Through my sliver of view, someone walks past. Just a flash of apron and dark hair, hands carrying a platter. Sera who bought the lemons, maybe, though I only see her for a heartbeat before she's gone.
"A toast," a woman's voice commands. Warm but weighted. Marisol. "To the magnificent woman who returned my brother to me, and who cooks for us every week."
The sounds shift. Chairs pushed back, crystal singing as glasses meet.
"To Sera," multiple voices say together.
Another pause, then the sounds of sitting, eating resuming.
A male voice, quiet but carrying: "Bless this food and those who prepared it."
"Amen," several voices respond, though one adds, "Bit late for that, Gabriel," and gets a laugh that breaks the solemnity.
That must be Gabriel Delgado, Marisol's brother. He was in the newspapers too, the heir who ran away to join the seminary, but recently returned to Miami, fallen from grace.
I step closer to the door, unable to make myself stop. Through the gap, I can see one more detail that makes my chest tighten. An empty chair at the corner of the table. Place setting intact, wine glass unfilled, napkin folded. Waiting.
Gunner's chair. The family dinner that's happened every Sunday for years, and he's not here.
Because of me.
The weight of it presses down on my shoulders. I've cost him this. This warmth, this belonging, this family that clearly adores him despite everything he thinks about himself.
The conversation drifts for a few more minutes. Talk of the club's good week, someone mentioning the bar takings are up, a measured voice providing details about staffing. Then crystal strikes wood, and the room's energy shifts like weather changing.
"So we're just not going to talk about it?" Marisol's voice drops into the warmth and freezes it.
"Carino." That must be her husband, Nico, with a warning in his tone.
"No. Nine years of Sunday dinners. Nine years his backside's been in that chair. And now?" I hear her chair scrape. "Empty as a confessional on a Saturday night. While he plays house upstairs with some painter's daughter."
My hand flies to my mouth, holding in the sound that wants to escape.
"That's not…" Adrian starts.
"Isn't it?" Marisol's voice sharpens. "He took her from her home. Dragged her here because her father was painting in our garden. And now he thinks she's connected to Hallstein?"
The name lands strange in my ears. Hallstein. Who is that?
Another voice, careful and measured:
"The timeline fits. Nicolas Gilles was in the garden three weeks ago. Just after the breach at the docks, and right before Gunner learned about Hallstein's upcoming Pentagon appointment. If Hallstein sent the painter to spy on us…"
"Then the daughter is just leverage," Nico finishes. "That's what Gunner's read on the situation is."
My knees go weak. Just leverage. That's all I am to them. To him. Not a person, not even a proper captive. Just a tool in some game I don't understand.
"But he hasn't confirmed anything," Sera says. "In three weeks, he hasn't pushed her for information. Hasn't even asked about her father properly."
"Because he's lost his fucking mind over her.
" Marisol's words are bullets, but there's a crack down the middle of every one.
"Nine years since the discharge took him apart, nine years gluing himself back together one ugly piece at a time, and now, when it matters most, he goes soft over a pretty face.
Jorge would be ashamed. I'm scared, which is worse. "
"That's not fair." Adrian's voice carries steel under the warmth now. "You didn't see him when he brought her in. This isn't just business for him."
"Which is exactly the problem." I hear Marisol's heels on the floor, pacing like a caged animal. "Hallstein is about to become untouchable. Pentagon advisory commission on military justice reform. If this girl is working for him…"
"She's not at this table," another female voice cuts through, sharp as knives. "That's your answer right there."
A pause that throbs with tension.
"She's not at this table, Isa," Marisol agrees, each word dripping acid, "because I don't trust her.
And neither should any of you. Not until we know why her father was really in that garden.
I've watched Gunner rebuild himself slowly after what happened to him, and I won't let some painter's daughter undo it all.
She could be Hallstein's asset for all we know. "
"I was an outsider once too," the quiet woman says carefully. "You all watched me the same way."
"You didn't arrive as someone's captive, Wren," Marisol shoots back. "You earned your place. She's just leverage that he's too compromised to use properly."
So that's her name. Wren. The woman beside the man with dark hair and broad shoulders.
"Look," Gabriel's voice enters carefully. The ex-priest. "We trust Gunner's judgment. Always have. But this situation…"
"Is exactly why he's not here," Marisol finishes. "He knows I'll ask the questions he won't face. Like why he's so sure she's connected to Hallstein when he won't interrogate her properly. Like why she's still here at all."
Another pause. No one contradicts her. The silence is agreement.
"He's falling for her," Adrian says quietly. "Or already has."