Chapter 19 August 22, 2024
Steel
He could count the number of times he’d seen Daleyza speechless on one hand. Surprising her was the only way to do it. She’d been silent for so long, he was worried he’d actually broken her, if that was possible.
“You came… for me.”
“Of course I did. I promised you on our wedding night that I’d always protect you. Don’t you remember?”
She sat, frozen, in his lap. Dios, he’d always loved sitting with her like this—preferably when they were both naked and she was riding his cock, but…
this would have to do. It was highly unlikely he’d ever get to experience anything beyond what was happening right now.
The fact that she hadn’t shivved him for the kiss was a small miracle.
Yeah, he hadn’t missed her swiping the piece of broken plastic from the seatbelt buckle cover of Equinox’s plane. He was pleased his lessons hadn’t disappeared in the years they’d been apart. The number one rule he taught her: Always have something on her that could become a weapon.
As for the kiss? He was working hard to stomp that down into the farthest corners of his memory. Dios, that had felt wonderful too.
When she slid off his lap, this time, he let her.
He knew her better than she knew herself.
She needed time to think. To go back and catalog the things he’d done over their years together and view them with that premise.
It was the only way she’d be able to make sense of things.
To be able to believe his words. It’s how she’d always been.
Hours later, they arrived at the corporate headquarters of Tribe, a ten-story office building in the heart of Los Angeles.
To anyone passing by, it looked like any other professional building.
If someone looked down on it from the eastern side, they could see into an atrium of sorts, filled with a personalized park and playground equipment.
They’d assume there was an on-site day-care facility for those who worked at the company, and they’d be partially correct.
It was for the ghost team’s children. But behind the bulletproof glass and solid walls, all people might know was that it was a company that handled personal security.
And anyone who had been on the inside never spoke of what little they’d been permitted to see, which was only the ground-floor lobby, the second-floor reception area, and the conference room. If they did speak of it? They wouldn’t be around long enough to tell anyone else.
While the other men went to the armory to put away their gear and clean up, he led her straight to his apartment on the sixth floor.
He stood in the small foyer, watching her take in the space.
All the apartments at Tribe were the same in terms of space and layout, but over the past two years, the others had taken on less utilitarian aesthetics as women and children were added to the mix.
His, however, still looked as if a bachelor lived there.
She trailed her fingers along the back of the low-backed leather couch. “You work out of this building?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And I’ll be staying with you?”
In his head, he begged for forgiveness. “I’ll stay in one of the empty guest apartments.”
She frowned at him. “That’s silly. Why wouldn’t I stay in one of those and you stay in your own apartment?”
“Because this will be more comfortable. Those apartments are sterile. Barely anything in them. Here, you have access to a stocked kitchen, laundry, and rooms that are furnished.”
“But aren’t we leaving in the morning? I’m not likely to need anything except somewhere to sleep.”
He paused. “If you’re comfortable staying with me in the apartment, there’s a guest bedroom across from mine with its own bathroom.
” He dropped their bags on the breakfast bar, then wished he hadn’t because now he didn’t know what to do with his hands.
“Midas made you a code for the elevator. Six digits. Month, day, year of your birthday. You’ll need to enter it every time you want to use it.
You’ll have access to the floors with living quarters, the gym, and the second floor.
The other floors are team access only. It will also allow you to come and go from the apartment at will. ”
She was at the patio door, looking out onto the small area that held two lounge chairs and a low table. Her body tensed. “Is that necessary? I mean, as I said, we’re leaving tomorrow morning, early.”
“When we get back from Argentina, I’m not sure how long it will take to get you set up for a new location. A few days to a week.”
“And you all live in this building? The men, their women, and their families?”
“Tribe guys each have an apartment here. Nemo… Fuck, I’ve no idea, actually, where he lives with Gem.
Mythos members are rarely in one place for long.
When he was part of our team, he lived on the same floor as his brother, and he still has access to his place.
Kubrick and Flame own houses they had before they met Waters and TB.
They live in both spaces, although Flame is here more than there. It’s safer for them.”
He couldn’t see her face from the angle he was standing at, but he did notice that her shoulders curled inward. “Belleza, what is it?”
“You have this whole life here. A life I knew nothing about.”
“I explained why—”
“Sí, you explained why. You were protecting me. But you weren’t, Fanso.”
He felt anger begin to coalesce, swirling dust particles in the wind, and with each second, the wind captured more and more debris until it formed a funnel cloud inside him.
“Everything I’ve ever done, since you walked up to me at the altar, has been with the intention to protect you, Madre, and Tobias. ”
She turned to face him. “Maybe you thought that’s what you were doing, but you weren’t.
They threatened to deport us? They never would have done it.
We were too valuable to them. Two biological children from two competing crime lords who approached them about giving up information on the cartels in Argentina?
We held all the power, Fanso. Your government would have been tripping over itself to give us everything we wanted and more if it meant they could get the credit for shutting down the Colonels alone. ”
“It was a very real threat, Daleyza. I wouldn’t have been able to stop them.”
“No, because you rolled over and showed them your belly like a dog the moment they suggested sending us all back. You didn’t even try to hold their feet to the fire.”
“How the hell would you know that?”
“It only makes sense because they threatened me too, Fanso!” Whirling away from him, she slammed her hands against the window. “They came at me, a mother in mourning for her child. In a strange country, in a box of a room, alone!
“My brothers didn’t tell me anything because I was a worthless girl.
They weren’t always as careful as they should have been because they falsely assumed I was stupid.
I told your DEA agents every conversation I overheard, every visitor to the house I saw, anything and everything I could think of that might be of use to them.
“When I said I didn’t know any more, they threatened to send me back to my brother if I didn’t give up everything else, but there was nothing left to give them. I held my ground, Fanso. They threatened you… they threatened Madre. If Tobias had been alive, they would have threatened him too.
“But you can’t get blood from a stone, Fanso.
If there had been anything else to tell them, I would have.
I was alone. Frightened. Grieving. I needed you there to hold me.
To tell me everything would be okay. But you weren’t there, so I just kept reminding myself what you told me.
That you would always protect me. I got through those days of separation because I believed that to be true. I trusted you!”
His heart plummeted. “Agent Salazar played me. He assured me that you both were living well. That you were staying in a hotel nearby. But he couldn’t let me go because he couldn’t move on what little information I’d given him, and he was being forced to send you both back to Argentina.
The DEA felt they weren’t getting what they were promised. ”
There was a bark of laughter, its bitterness more than obvious. “So let me guess. They threatened to send you back to the Navy and face punishment there. A court-martial and a dishonorable discharge. Prison time for desertion. But if you could come up with something more, you’d be free to go.”
“Not exactly,” he hedged. He might as well tell her the truth.
It wasn’t like it mattered now. “A prison sentence might have been better for us all. The deal was—if I went back to the Navy, went no-contact with you before leaving, I could go back to my unit. Shortly after returning, they would arrange a fake death for me. They’d give me special missions to fulfill, but I could never see you again.
In return, they’d keep you in the WITSEC program, you’d receive my benefits to live off, and you could stay in the States. ”
“The Ildefanso Colonel I knew never would have fallen for that,” she said softly.
She wasn’t wrong. He should have known better, but he’d been in such a panic. Sleep-deprived, not thinking clearly, and he played right into their hands. At that point, he would have agreed to anything to make sure his family was safe, and Agent Salazar had used that to his advantage.
“I hadn’t seen you in days. They wouldn’t even tell me whether Ka-Bar had lived or died. And Tobias… They wouldn’t even let me see him one last time before you buried him.”
The pain he felt at that moment was the worst he’d ever felt.
Like someone reached into his chest cavity, grasped his heart, and squeezed it until it exploded.
It was the ultimate betrayal. It felt wrong that his own country—the one he’d fought and bled for—had betrayed him, but what other solution made sense?
And over what? Bragging rights to say they brought down the Colonels?
The right to seize billions of dollars in drugs, guns, and women?
And the irony of it was, they hadn’t been able to do it, even with everything Steel, Livia, and Daleyza gave them.
The Navy failed, and now the Colonel Cartel controlled all of Argentina instead of just sections of it.
They’d sucked up all the other cartels within their borders and were now making plays for other countries in South America.
In the end, it had all been for nothing.
He could tell her that. Plead his case. But it would sound like nothing but excuses, and Steel had always been one who held himself accountable for his fuckups.
So instead of apologizing. Instead of begging for her forgiveness.
Instead of groveling to be let back into her life, he took responsibility for the mistake because, well-intentioned or not, manipulated or not, he made the choice in the end.
“I protected you the only way I knew how, Leeza. My intentions were honorable, if misguided. My only thought was to ensure that you and Madre never had to go back to that hell. That you could start fresh. Have a better life. One you deserved.
“They kept their promises to me. When I could check on you, I always made sure of that. Perhaps it wasn’t the luxury you lived in while with me in Córdoba, but there it was a gilded cage. In the States, you had the basics of shelter, food, clothing, and you were free.”
He thought of all the things he wished he could tell her. All the things he missed. About their marriage. About their son. About how much he fucking loved her. In all the years they were married, even with having a son together, he’d never told her that.
It was killing him to be in the same room with her, yet he couldn’t walk away. The few moments he’d been able to talk to her and touch her were the moments he’d dreamed of while they’d been apart. He’d take whatever scraps he could get.
“But we didn’t have the most important thing that we needed, Fanso.
” She turned to him, her eyes glassy with tears she’d never let fall.
“We didn’t have you. I wouldn’t have cared if you’d been court-martialed, or dishonorably discharged, or even put in prison for a crime you didn’t commit.
You would have still been mine, and you would have been free to come home to me at the end of your sentence.
We survived a fucking cartel hell, so we could have survived anything.
Instead, you walked away from that, leaving us behind to pick up the pieces. ”
Again, she was correct. He’d left. Could he have demanded to see them one more time before he left?
Yes. But he’d been too damn afraid to push and risk losing everything for them.
His fearful reasoning at the time didn’t matter.
Results did. It looked to her like he ran, so that was the truth to her.
He’d never convince her otherwise. And perhaps, it was actually true when he looked at it now, after all these years.
All he could do was lock everything down. Keep his emotions in check. Stay close enough to protect her, but far enough away that she was less of a temptation. If he’d ever had any hope of a reconciliation with her, it was gone now. He’d done too much damage for her to forgive him.
And that’s what he did. He let the mask everyone saw slide into place and became the cold, hard steel he was named for. No emotion. No sympathy. No soul.
“I need to go put away my gear. Write up my report. I’ll probably be gone for a while, but you’re welcome to anything that’s here.
Cherry has likely ordered you some clothes.
I’ll check with her and have them sent up.
” He paused. Leaving like this felt so… inadequate.
Like he was abandoning her again. “There are menus in a drawer in the kitchen. You can pick what you want, press zero on the phone, and it goes straight to Cherry. She’ll take care of it.
Try to get some sleep. I’ll get you up at four a.m. so you’re ready to leave. ”
Afraid if he said more, the mask would slip, so he grabbed his bag and headed out the apartment door. He cursed himself the entire way to the armory.