Chapter 20
Through the doorway we opened yesterday in the kitchen wall, Daphne tests paint swatches on bare drywall.
The adjoining chamber that used to store spare security equipment is becoming part of our apartment.
She’s been at it for an hour. Three small squares of color.
Soft white. Warm cream. Pale gray-green. Fresh paint scent drifts through.
"The cream's too yellow," she calls without looking back. "Makes the room feel smaller."
"Gray-green then."
"You didn't even look."
"Don't need to. You already decided."
She laughs—a full, bright sound, nothing like her laugh around strangers.
It fills both rooms, gets into everything.
I keep thinking I'll get used to the easy intimacy of living with her, but it still throws me off.
For nine years I lived alone, the only voices in my apartment the ones on the radio, the only color on my walls the grayscale of CCTV stills.
Now there's a person, a woman, not just existing in my space but actively rewriting it, one brush stroke at a time.
She turns and studies my face, eyes narrowed just a little. "You could help, you know."
"I am helping," I say. "I'm the audience."
She snorts. "Audience brings coffee."
I set down the mug I've been nursing and fill another for her. She takes it, hands stained with green and yellow, and sips without comment. The mug leaves a half-moon on the drop cloth. She's already forgotten about it, absorbed again in how the paint looks as it dries.
The scene is so domestic it feels like a hallucination.
I keep waiting for the spell to break, for the old violence to come knocking.
Sometimes I think I miss that part of myself—the one that lived only for the hunt, that needed nothing and no one.
But then I see Daphne's bare feet in the sunlight, the way she hums under her breath, and I know that's a lie.
I return to the photographs. The kitchen counter holds forty-three surveillance photographs in neat rows.
Last month's documentation from the Coral Gables house, each image timestamped and recorded.
This is my first detailed review of these specific photos, though I've been tracking Hallstein for years.
Tuesday's grab is four days out, and I'm tying up every loose end.
Hallstein entering his house, 8:45 AM. Hallstein with his driver, 10:25 AM. Hallstein on the porch with his wife in her wheelchair and Camille behind her, 2:15 PM.
I study this third image carefully. Hallstein's hand at Camille's lower back, fingers spread in that controlling way men like him touch what they think they own. His wife vacant-eyed in the wheelchair. Camille's professional smile.
But then I see it.
My hand freezes over the photograph. My jaw clenches hard enough to crack teeth.
Camille's left wrist. Where it rests on the wheelchair. There's a bruise around it. Finger-shaped marks, dark against her skin. Two days old when this was taken, judging by the color. The gripping pattern of someone who held too hard.
I've reviewed surveillance of the house before, but never noticed this detail. I've tracked Camille in my files as "non-target, civilian, background only" since she started working there. She's been in that house caring for his wife, and I missed this.
Everything shifts. The plan, the timing, all of it. The pieces fall into place fast. What I should have seen: Camille alone with Hallstein while his wife sleeps. Years of access. Years of opportunity for him to do what he does. She's the live witness I told myself didn't exist.
Two minutes of complete stillness while the recognition settles like lead in my gut. All this time, she's been trapped with him.
The grab has to change. Hallstein can't know we're coming for Camille or she disappears. She has to be pulled at the same moment he goes down. The Delgado resources, the Rosetti contacts, Logan's people, everything has to align perfectly.
"Come here."
The words come out sharper than intended. Daphne sets down her paintbrush immediately, crosses through the doorway. Paint fumes cling to her clothes. She stops beside my stool at the kitchen counter, her head still lower than mine.
I turn the photograph toward her. "I missed something."
Daphne studies the photograph the way she studies everything. Complete, patient, seeing what others miss.
As the seconds tick by in the dim room, I shift on the stool, legs tense. Thirty seconds of silence stretch between us. Daphne's gaze isn't on Hallstein first but on Camille's body in the photograph—the tilt of her shoulders, the arch of her back, the trembling hands.
After a beat, she taps the glossy photo. "The bruising on her wrist," she says softly. "Someone grabbed her, held her when she tried to pull away."
I lean forward, breath catching, as she traces Camille's back. "See how her body angles away even though his hand's there? Micro-avoidance. She's forcing distance while looking compliant."
She moves her finger to Camille's other hand. "White knuckles gripping the wheelchair. That's pure fear."
I exhale. "Dammit."
Daphne flips the photo, tone flat and final. "She's living it now. While we analyze old evidence, she's stuck in that house with him."
Her words land like a fist. I rub my jaw. Hundreds of days Camille's endured what these images only hint at.
My hand slides to the dossier folder on the table. I curl my fingers around its edge. "We have to get her out."
Daphne braces herself, ready to bolt. "Let's go get her."
I raise a palm. "Not yet. If we grab her now, we alert Hallstein. If we can't convince her to come with us, he'll make her disappear. And either way, he'll know we're onto him. No, it has to be simultaneous. We grab him, we grab her."
She tilts her head, thinking fast. "So, Tuesday?"
"Yes. Twelve-thirty," I confirm. "The dossier fires to Erika at the Pentagon. I handle Hallstein at the warehouse. But Camille needs pulling at the exact same moment."
Daphne's shoulders tighten. "She'll need someone there that she can trust. Another woman. I'll do it."
"No," I bark. I take a deep breath to control my voice. "Wren will do it. She spent years running from place to place, running away from her feelings. She'll know how to talk to Camille."
Just when I think Daphne's about to argue, her eyes flick to me. "Logan might not like that."
"He can run the extraction and only use Wren when it's safe."
Daphne nods. "Camille will need somewhere safe to go. Somewhere Hallstein can't access even if things go wrong."
This is the piece I haven't told her. "There's a shelter in Hialeah. La Casa de Acogida. Spanish-speaking staff, secure intake, completely off-grid."
She narrows her eyes. "How do you know about a place like that?"
I meet her gaze. "I've been funding it. Guilt money, I guess. For the women I couldn't save."
She processes this silently. One nod, then she clambers into my lap and puts her arms around my neck. We totter on the small stool, and I widen my legs to steady us.
"Camille speaks Spanish?" she asks into my neck.
"Colombian. No work visa, so we need to keep it off the books."
Her fingers drum my shoulder. "She'll need someone with her the first day. Someone who speaks Spanish and won't push for information."
Another thing I hadn't considered. "The shelter director. I trust her."
Daphne slides off my lap, straightening her t-shirt. "Okay. Tuesday, twelve-thirty. The dossier fires, exposing Hallstein for the monster he is. Logan and Wren pull Camille from Coral Gables. You handle Hallstein at the warehouse. Camille goes to Casa de Acogida. That's the plan?"
I squeeze her knee. "That's the plan."
For the first time in nine years, I have someone who sees angles I miss, who thinks laterally where I think linear. If this goes wrong, if Hallstein gets wind of it, the whole Delgado family becomes a target. But with her reading the angles I can't see, maybe we'll pull this off.
"We're really doing this," she says. Not a question.
"Yes," I confirm.
We perch at the counter with forty-three photographs between us and Tuesday's violence four days away, and for the first time since this all started, I'm not alone.
Daphne wriggles off my lap and moves behind me. Her hand touches the back of my neck briefly. Then she leans down and presses her lips to my temple. Two seconds of contact. Simple. Devastating. Paint on her hands, coffee on her breath.
I close my eyes. Let it land. The partnership we just built needs physical ratification. She's mine, has been since that first night, but now she's mine in this too. In the violence, in the justice, in what comes next.
I turn on the stool, reach up, pull her around to face me. Her mouth opens under mine immediately. Heat and recognition and something beyond words. The kiss escalates fast.
I lift her onto the counter, shoving photographs aside. Papers scatter with a whisper of sliding images. The bruised-wrist photo lands face-down.
She's on the counter. I'm standing between her legs. Eye to eye. The cool formica under her, my hands burning where they touch her thighs.
"Now?" she asks against my mouth.
The rest of the world narrows to her lips and the heat of her thighs pressed to my hips, the cold edge of the kitchen counter biting into my palms. The photographs scatter further, a paper slide of memory and evidence, but the only record that matters is this: her, holding me in place, demanding proof.
"Now."
My voice comes out rougher than I intend, a snarl stoked by the violence in both of us.
I push her leggings down, the fabric snapping at her ankles, and she kicks them free.
This is quick, necessary. Her paint-stained t-shirt stays on, the fabric soft under my hands.
My jeans open just enough. No time or patience for a full undressing. We need the contact.
I push inside her. She's already wet, already ready. The operational mind finally quiets as her pussy grips my cock. This woman who sees what I miss, who stands with me against monsters. Mine.
My hands find purchase at the backs of her knees, spreading her wider until her heels knock against the cabinet doors.
The counter shakes with our motion, glasses chattering in the cupboard above.
It's frantic, charged, almost angry—neither of us looking for gentleness, only confirmation that what we're about to do matters. That we matter. That this is real.
Her mouth finds my neck, bites down, teeth sharp enough to hurt.
"Fuck," she says, and the word echoes in the hollow kitchen, louder than the slap of skin or the hiss of our breathing. "Just like that. Don't stop."
Her nails dig into my shoulder, the paint on her fingers leaving smears on my t-shirt. Her other hand splay-fingers the countertop, palm covering the face-down photograph of Camille's bruised wrist.
Three minutes. Eyes open. Watching each other.
The photographs whisper against the counter with each thrust. We're fucking over evidence.
Over the memory of another woman's pain and the certainty of future violence.
It's not arousing in the usual sense. It's a vow.
I drive into her harder. I will not let him get away with it.
Her pussy grips me like a vice, already building toward an orgasm.
Four days until I end Hallstein. Four days of Daphne in my bed, on this counter, against every surface of our expanding apartment.
Four days of her brilliant mind planning beside mine and her perfect body taking everything I give her.
Her head drops back, neck arching, lips parted, a line of sweat at her hairline.
"Harder," she orders, and I obey, the edge of the counter digging into my thighs as I snap my hips.
I watch her face. I want to see the moment she comes, want to memorize every muscle that tenses, every micro-expression that says yes, this is right, this is us.
I thrust deeper, harder, feeling her start to shake. We're not done. Not even close.