Chapter 26
Living through the past few days without her has been like wading through concrete.
Empty apartment. Tasteless food. Pointless routines.
Just me, the monster, and I.
This is your fault, she repeats in my mind. Your fault.
The days blur into operations, dry-running the Coral Gables timeline, disposal logistics for the body.
She doesn't call. Her silence is louder than any scream. I don't call her. Look at my phone once, see nothing, put it face down. Even her absence has a shape that fills this room.
Stay away from us.
Sunday afternoon bleeds into evening. The dossier work continues though there's nothing left to refine. Through the window, I see the garden below. Brown bougainvillea blossoms dropping, untended. The beauty I grew for nine years, dying because I can't bear to touch them any more.
Two hours' sleep at most each night for nine days. The face in the bathroom mirror belongs to someone I don't recognize. Hollow, haunted, alone. A man who's been in solitary nine years, had forty days of sunlight, then got thrown back in the dark.
Monday, lunchtime, my phone vibrates face-up on the counter. Logan's number shows on the screen.
I answer, expecting operational updates.
"Nicolas called the security line." Logan's voice is careful, controlled. "He insisted I patch him through to you. Says it's about Daphne."
Everything in me drops. "Put him through."
A click, then Nicolas's voice floods the line. That French-Canadian accent Daphne grew up hearing, but shattered now. Pain from the cottage assault still there, ribs still taped, but now something worse. Terror.
"She's gone." His voice cracks. "Gunner, God help me, she's gone. She left the front door hanging open, gravel spilled in the driveway like she fought them."
The words land like bullets. Three shots to the chest.
"They took her."
Everything in me goes still. Then moves. I'm on my feet before the thought finishes.
"Stay at the cottage. Don't call local PD yet. I'll call you back."
I end it. I'm already moving. Apartment door open behind me. Down the back service stair in fifteen seconds, taking them three at a time. Across the back hallway. Out the back door. Into the loading dock.
My truck sits ready, tail-first.
I climb in. Start the engine.
But I don't pull out.
The engine rumbles while I sit at the wheel, loading dock lights cutting across the dashboard. My body screams to drive. To Pristine, to the cottage, anywhere she might be. Motion is what my body knows. Motion is escape from feeling.
But there's nowhere to drive. Not yet. I don't know where she is. Driving north gets me an empty cottage. Driving south gets me to Coral Gables where the colonel won't be. He'll be wherever his people are holding her. Driving anywhere alone burns the only resource I haven't touched.
I've worked this alone for nine years, never asking for help from anybody, not even Logan.
That changes now.
Logan picks up on the second ring. He knows I don't call. Me calling means the world is ending.
The briefing spills out in two minutes. Logan has known the name for weeks — the whole family has, since the dinner-table arguments — but none of them have ever known why.
Now he gets all of it: Nine years of hunting the colonel.
Six dead women in 2017, raped and then murdered.
The file. The dossier ready for release to the press through my JAG contact.
The journalist at the Atlantic who's been prepped.
The operation I'd planned, stood down the day they broke into the cottage and broke her father. His call seven minutes ago.
Just facts. Logan listens without interrupting. Then silence.
The next words feel like pulling glass from my throat.
"I need the family." My voice cracks on it. "Not just security. The family. Adrian and Marisol and Gabriel and Isa and you and Nico and whatever Rosetti cousins can be activated from New York and Chicago."
My hands shake. Not from violence this time, but from the terrifying act of admitting I need them.
"I should have asked three months ago. Should have asked when Erika called in March.
Should have asked when I first met her. Should have asked in 2017 when I started building the file.
" My voice keeps going whether I want it to or not.
"I've been the man who doesn't ask for nine years, and my pride put her in a chair tonight. "
Now the final piece, the hardest to say: "I'm asking now. Help me. Please."
Logan doesn't respond for two seconds. Doesn't ask why he wasn't told earlier. His response cuts straight to action.
"I'll gather everyone. Adrian first, he's in the building.
Marisol's twenty minutes away, and Nico's with her.
Isa's downstairs, she'll drop everything to step up.
Emilio Rosetti in New York might be useful too, I'll brief him cold, you don't need to be on that call.
Meet back at my office in twenty minutes. Get your operational kit ready."
Then softer, the brotherhood bleeding through: "You're not carrying this alone anymore, brother. We've been waiting nine years for you to let us in."
I end the call. Sit in the truck with the engine running. The tremor that started Saturday is worse now. My hands won't stop shaking. Nine years of not-asking, and the bill comes due all at once.
Finally, I kill the engine, step out, and walk back into La Sirena.
Up to Logan's office on the mezzanine. The room waits empty. Dark.
I flip the lights. Sit at the table.
And wait for the family I finally admitted I need.
Logan arrives first, laptop under his arm like a weapon. Sets it on the table, pulls out his phone. "Emilio's patching in now."
The connection crackles. A voice I don't know, dry and focused: "Logan's briefed me. I'm at my keyboard. Starting the cyber work now. Full mobilization."
Adrian enters next, straight from the floor, already in his evening armor.
Dark suit, no tie, the clothes that make him king of this underworld.
He doesn't ask questions. Just sits, looks at me.
Really looks. Sees the wreckage of the last five days written on my face.
His expression does that Adrian thing. Warmth that somehow makes everything feel possible.
He reaches across the table, grips my shoulder once.
Marisol bursts in, her golden hair wild, jeans and soft sweater instead of her usual designer everything. She's in full chaos-goblin mode. Eyes bright, alert, already calculating. Those eyes find me first. Lock on. Two seconds of assessment.
She sees everything. The sleepless face. The body that's been eating grief instead of food. The tremor in my hands that wasn't there two weeks ago.
She doesn't say anything. Just crosses to me with the determination that's kept the Delgado empire standing. Hand on my shoulder. Squeezes hard enough to hurt, hard enough to ground me. Then sits across from me, eyes never leaving my face.
The squeeze says everything: I'm here because you're here. No questions needed.
Isa enters wearing tailored pants and jacket, dark hair piled high, mouth set in that blade-sharp line. "Tell me what you need me to do."
Logan tells her: Run tonight normal. Floor open until eleven, Siren on schedule. Anyone asks about me, I'm out on Adrian's family business. Information cap holds. She nods once, sharp. "Got it." Then she's gone.
Nico arrives moments later, straight from the penthouse, his soldier's calm settling over the room like ballast. Logan briefs him in two minutes.
When he finishes, Nico's response is immediate: "I'm in.
The Rosetti family is at your disposal. Chicago soldiers, New York cousins, LA on standby.
Famiglia mobilizes tonight. Whatever you need, however many bodies, whatever it costs. "
The family is assembled.
I run the briefing myself. Ten minutes, everything compressed.
They know the name; tonight they learn the why: The colonel's history.
Six women raped and killed. Nine years of building evidence.
The planned release through my JAG contact, who has a journalist at the Atlantic ready.
The Tuesday operation, stood down when the cottage was hit. Nicolas's call twenty-two minutes ago.
Logan assigns roles with military precision.
Emilio Rosetti in New York is a hacker, so he takes the federal contractor records, shell companies, electrical grid anomalies.
Adrian marshals surveillance feeds and aerial photos through his network of clients who owe favors, plus authorization for the Delgado covert teams. Logan handles strike coordination.
Marisol arranges post-op logistics. Hospital, recovery, transport.
Nico provides Rosetti family blessing for what's about to happen.
And me? I take the operational lead on getting her back.
Everyone moves. Then my phone vibrates. It's a video.
I set it face-up on the table. The family gathers close while I tap play.
The first three seconds stop my heart.
Daphne in the chair.
My fist closes on the table edge hard enough to crack wood. Can't breathe. Lean forward like I could reach through the screen. Every muscle in my body coils to attack something that isn't here.
The bruise on her jaw makes my vision blur red.
Someone touched her. Hurt her. While I sat here drowning in my own stubborn pride.
The chair bolted to concrete. Four anchor points.
Wrists and ankles zip-tied like an animal.
Single bulb hanging. The operator beside the camera with a burn-scarred jaw I'm memorizing, because I'm going to find him tonight and put him in the ground for touching what's mine.
But under the rage, something else. Her face holds that dry register. She's alive in there. Not broken. Still my Daphne, spine straight, chin up, eyes steady on the camera. She's doing her dancer's breathing even bound to a chair. That discipline she carries in her bones.