Chapter 21
The April sun already beats down on Calle Ocho, making the asphalt shimmer with heat that won’t break until October.
My head runs through the list Daphne gave me, her voice still echoing with that morning warmth I'm learning to recognize.
Two coffees from Yamila, the usual for me, a dark black brew for her.
Definitely nothing with caramel. The bread from the bakery next door, the sourdough Sera wants for tonight.
The croissant from the French place two blocks over that Daphne discovered yesterday and lit up about like she'd found gold.
The domestic routine feels wrong. Like wearing clothes that belong to someone else, someone who hasn't spent nine years sleeping with a gun under his pillow.
Nine years of the same route to the same coffee shop, and now I'm planning detours for croissants because a woman's eyes went bright when she tasted one.
The strangeness sits wrong in my bones like a coat cut for somebody else.
Not quite fitting, but Christ, I want to keep it.
This morning she traced the scars on my chest while telling me about the backsplash for the new kitchen.
Like my violence and her softness could coexist. Like I could be the kind of man who brings home pastries.
Fifty feet to Café Cuba. The morning crowd will be thick, the regulars who've been watching me not watch them for years.
But today I'm thinking about the way Daphne's hand lingered on my chest before I left, the casual intimacy of it, the possessive assumption that I'll come back with everything she asked for. That I'm hers to send on errands now.
Movement in my peripheral vision. Two men exit a black SUV at the curb. Another behind me, footsteps too deliberate for a civilian. The geometry reads wrong. Convergent angles, professional spacing, ex-military in how they hold their shoulders.
They're coming for me.
The third man's right hand holds something. Syringe, catching sunlight. Snatch, not kill. They want me breathing.
The decision hits me in the gut. If they take me, if Hallstein finds out she exists… In my world, that's a death sentence. For her, and then for them.
I drop the mental list, the warmth of ten minutes ago gone in a blink, and shift into the other gear. Three civilians at the far end of the block. Can't use the Glock. The knife stays in my boot. Hand-to-hand only.
The first one reaches me thinking I haven't clocked them.
His mistake. I pivot, use his momentum, drive an elbow into his throat.
He drops, choking. The copper smell of blood fills my nose as the second comes from my left, trying for my arms. I catch his wrist, twist until I hear the snap, then drive my knee into his solar plexus. He goes down gasping.
The third with the syringe is smarter, hanging back, waiting for an opening.
Professional. When he moves, it's fast. Military training in the footwork.
The syringe arcs toward my neck. I deflect with my forearm, but his other hand catches my temple with something hard.
Metal, maybe a ring. The skin splits. Blood immediately runs warm down my cheek.
We grapple. He's good, knows how to use his weight.
His knee finds my left thigh in a nerve strike that sends lightning down to my foot.
I'll limp for hours. But I get inside his guard, drive three quick strikes to his ribs, feel at least one crack.
The syringe clatters to the concrete. I put him down with a chokehold, careful not to kill. Need him alive for questions.
My hands are still shaking. Not from the fight, but from knowing I could lose her. She is my weakness, and if they'd found it… when they find it…
Blood drips from my temple onto the sidewalk. My thigh screams with each step. Bruised ribs protest when I breathe deep. But all three attackers are down. Two unconscious, one disabled but breathing.
I pull out my phone. My second-in-command, Peytone, answers on the first ring.
"Three hostiles down. Side street off Calle Ocho near the coffee shop. Take them alive. The one with the syringe goes to the warehouse."
"Cleanup crew?"
"Send them. Fast. Lots of civilians around."
As we're talking, I check my tracker app. Daphne is still at La Sirena.
"On it," Peytone says.
I end the call. Stand over the bodies for two seconds while the implications settle.
Hallstein knows I'm onto him. Somehow he knows I have the file.
The Tuesday timeline isn't secure anymore.
He's accelerating, trying to snatch me before I can release the dossier.
And if he knows about me, he might know about Daphne.
The decision forms instantly. She has to leave Miami. Today. Before he finds out what she means to me.
I walk the remaining fifty feet to the coffee shop. Blood still seeps from the temple cut, mixing with sweat. The limp is obvious. Yamila's eyes widen when she sees me, but she knows better than to ask. In this world, blood is just another Saturday. She starts my usual.
While she works the espresso machine, I duck into the small bathroom.
Wet a paper towel, clean the worst of the blood away.
The cut's not deep but it's long, will need butterflies later.
Good enough for now. The face in the mirror is the one that makes mothers pull their children close. The blood suits it.
Back at the counter waiting for the coffees, I see today's Miami Herald sitting there. Someone left it open to the regional section. The Pristine pages, little town news that nobody in Miami cares about.
My eyes catch on the page. Jarrod Boyce in a suit, his mother beside him at some fundraiser.
"Local Business Owner Receives Community Service Award.
" The hardware store owner who's been waiting for Daphne to notice him, now getting ribbons for organizing charity drives.
The kind of man the world celebrates. Safe.
Clean. The life waiting for her if she goes home.
I flip forward, not sure why I'm looking. Three pages later, my own name jumps out from newsprint.
A syndicated piece picking up on the Pentagon coverage, running a side article on the need for justice in the military.
"Questions Deepen About Dishonorable Dischargee's Military Record.
" The paragraph is about an unnamed sergeant, believed to be living in Miami under the surname Gunner, employed in private security, described as a troubled veteran with a possible grudge related to a 2017 incident.
I read it twice, and the second time I see the fingerprints.
Syndicated. Sourced to "officials familiar with the commission process.
" Dropped into regional papers the same week three men tried to put a needle in my neck.
This isn't journalism. It's preparation.
Hallstein is salting the ground, building the unstable-veteran story before my dossier can land, so that when it does, it reads like the ravings the Army always said I was capable of.
He isn't defending anymore. He's moving.
My eyes move between the two articles. Jarrod's award on one page, my name beside "troubled veteran" three pages on.
Two different futures printed on the same paper.
With him she's the hardware store owner's wife, safe and celebrated.
With me she's the woman who chose the unstable soldier, explaining that choice for the rest of her life.
In one she's clean. In the other she's mine, and covered in my dirt forever.
I fold the paper closed. Pay for the coffees. Pick up the bread from the bakery next door.
I don't go to the French place for Daphne's croissant. The decision makes itself. Why buy pastries for someone who won't be here to eat them?
The apartment door opens and Daphne sees everything at once. The blood on my temple, still wet from Miami heat. The limp I can't hide. Whatever she was holding drops to the desk. A book, maybe.
Her hands come to my face, fingertips gentle near the cut. The touch burns worse than the wound. "What happened?"
"The situation has evolved," I say.
She steps back, reading what I'm not saying. Her dark eyes track across my face, and I watch her understand before I say it. Too smart, my Daphne. She's always seen through my bullshit.
She sees it in my eyes. The finality. The way my hands are still trembling, not from adrenaline, but from the kind of fear I can't shake with a gun. Still, she holds my gaze, even as the stubborn part of her brain is already drawing up countermeasures.
"You have to leave Miami," I say. "Today."
She blinks, tight, like the word physically hit her. "No."
The word lands between us, absurd in its softness. I want to laugh. Instead, I repeat it, slower. "You have to leave. Two of Logan's men will take you to Pristine. You'll stay at your father's cottage until this is done."
"I'm not afraid." Her chin lifts, that regal thing she does when she's digging in. Christ, this woman. "We planned together yesterday. We're partners in this. You don't get to send me away like I'm some—"
"Like you're what?" I snap. "Baggage? Collateral? You are." She doesn't flinch. "I'm not letting Hallstein get near you. He's got people in the city, probably eyes in this building right now."
Her mouth hardens into a line I recognize. She moves closer, sets the coffee she's been holding on the counter with surgical precision. "You think I'm going to let you handle this alone?" she says. "You think that's what I want?"
"I don't care what you want," I say, but the lie cracks on the way out. Of course I do. I care more than anything, and that's the fucking problem.
"Liar."
"You're leaving." The operational voice, the one from the first days of captivity. The voice that makes grown men piss themselves, and she's standing straighter because of it.
"This is bullshit and you know it. I'm useful here. I can help."
"This is not a request."