Chapter 19 Nina
Nina
“You mentioned found family earlier,” I redirect slightly. “How does that concept reconcile with the blood family you have?”
“Blood is accident,” Vicente says. “Choice is intention.”
“Mason isn’t blood,” Arturo adds. “Neither is his daughter Zoey. But they’re family. More than some who share our DNA.”
“That must have been an adjustment.”
Vicente laughs, but it rings hollow. “Everything’s an adjustment. Learning to trust again after thirty years? Adjustment. Accepting that what felt like abandonment was just... fear? Major adjustment.”
Arturo’s jaw tightens. “We don’t need to—”
“Maybe we do,” Vicente says quietly. “Maybe that’s exactly what we need to do.”
I sense the shift, the sudden weight in the room. “What happened that created such distance?”
They exchange a look—not asking permission, more like gauging who will speak first.
“It was 1995,” Arturo says carefully. “Celeste was three. Lola was trying to hold us together—all three of us—but Vicente and I...” He stops, searching for words.
“We had been intimate,” Vicente says quietly. “The night Celeste was conceived.”
Arturo’s jaw works. “And I ran. I could not reconcile what I wanted with who I thought I was supposed to be. By ‘95, we were still business partners, with Lola trying to bridge the divide, but even with her efforts there remained this gulf between us that neither of us knew how to cross.”
“Lola thought a family gathering would help,” Arturo continues. “That if we could sit at the same table, share a meal, maybe we would remember why we mattered to each other. Her sister Selena came up from Mexico with their mother.”
Vicente’s expression goes distant. Memory, regret, and shame flicker across his face before careful neutrality takes hold.
“Lola was trying to build something normal,” Vicente says, voice carefully controlled. “Something that looked like family.”
“But we weren’t normal,” Arturo says. “We were three people who loved each other but couldn’t figure out how to be in the same room without everything falling apart.”
“What happened?”
“We fought,” Vicente says, and then stops.
“You slept with Lola’s sister,” Arturo says quietly. “Her own sister. In her house.”
“And you’d already given Elena a child.” Vicente’s voice doesn’t rise. “So let’s not pretend only one of us betrayed Lola.”
Arturo clenches his teeth. “You know we had an open marriage. For you.”
Vicente’s nostrils flare but he doesn’t rise to the bait.
“I left the next morning without saying goodbye,” Vicente says finally.
“I stayed in LA,” Arturo says, his hand clenching on his knee. “We still did business through Lola, but nothing real. Just geography and avoidance for the next five years.”
“I kept thinking we’d fix it,” Vicente says. “That eventually we’d have to address what happened. But we were both too proud. Too afraid.”
“Then Lola was murdered,” Arturo says, and his voice goes cold, dangerous. “The man who did it—”
“Arturo.” Vicente’s voice is sharp, warning.
But Arturo’s eyes have gone somewhere dark. “We made him understand what he’d taken from us. Made sure he had time to regret it while we—”
“Enough.” Vicente’s hand covers Arturo’s, grounding him. “That’s done.”
The temperature in the room has shifted.
For a moment, I glimpse what these men are capable of—the violence they’ve not just witnessed but enacted.
The earlier curiosity finally gives way to a twinge of genuine fear, deeper even than the last session when I baited them into showing me their claws.
My professional composure holds, but barely.
The only thing that dampens it is the reminder that these two men both lost the woman they loved, and suffered greatly as a result.
Whether or not they brought it on themselves is not really relevant anymore since they’ve both clearly taken responsibility.
“Her death changed everything,” Vicente says, pulling us back to safer ground. “What was avoidance became war. Easier to blame each other than admit we’d wasted eight years being cowards.”
“Grief has a way of calcifying things,” I offer.
“What might have been a temporary rupture becomes permanent because the pain of addressing it feels bigger than the pain of living with it. You both lost her, but you couldn’t grieve together because that would mean acknowledging what drove you apart. ”
Vicente’s eyes sharpen, focusing on me with new interest. “You’ve seen this before.”
“Unprocessed shame often looks like anger,” I continue. “And abandoned love often looks like hate. But underneath, it’s usually the same thing—two people who mattered too much to each other to risk being vulnerable again.”
Arturo shifts, his hand finding Vicente’s briefly. “We wasted so much time.”
“Did you?” I challenge gently. “Or did you need those thirty years to become people who could have this conversation? The men you were then—could they have sat here like this?”
They exchange a long look, more meaningful than the others.
“No,” Vicente admits. “We were too proud.”
“Too afraid,” Arturo corrects. “I was terrified of what I felt. What that night meant.”
This is new territory—something deeper than their previous admissions.
“Some people aren’t meant for traditional arrangements,” I say, thinking of my own choices. “Some of us know that about ourselves early.”
The words slip out before I can stop them. I didn’t intend to share something so personal or revealing.
But Arturo just nods. “Celeste knew by fifteen she’d never have a conventional life. She told me once that motherhood would be a cage. I understood. Her mother felt the same way until she got pregnant. Then everything changed.”
“Not everyone changes,” I say quietly.
“No,” Vicente agrees, his dark eyes steady on me. “Some people know themselves completely. It’s a rare gift.”
We sit with that for a moment. Then I realize we’ve been in session for forty minutes and I haven’t used all the CIA prompts I intended. But somehow, they’ve given me intelligence anyway—locations, patterns, timeframes, all woven through their genuine concerns about Celeste.
“How do you maintain trust,” I ask, finding a therapeutic version of their reliability assessment prompt, “when the landscape keeps shifting?”
“You don’t,” Vicente says simply. “You accept that trust is temporary. That today’s ally is tomorrow’s enemy. The only constant is change.”
“Except family,” Arturo corrects. “Found or blood. Family is constant.”
“Even when they disappoint you?”
“Especially then,” Vicente says. “When someone you love fails you—betrays you, leaves you, chooses their fear over your bond—and you still want them in your life? That’s when you know it’s real.”
Arturo nods slowly. “Family—real family, chosen or blood—they are the ones who help you remember who you are after trauma tries to erase you.” His voice carries the weight of experience.
“Thirty years of war, and Celeste still saw who we could be together. Maddox saw past what I did to him and his family. They held the truth of us when we forgot it ourselves.”
“That’s a profound kind of love,” I offer. “To see someone’s potential self when they can’t.”
“It’s the only kind that matters,” Vicente says quietly.
“Elena may need that same kind of time,” I say. “To move from seeing the harm to seeing the person beneath it. Forgiveness isn’t always immediate, especially when the wound is personal.”
Vicente’s expression shifts—becoming raw and unguarded. “If she ever does.”
“Elena lost her best friend when Lola was killed,” Arturo says to him. “Then she raised your daughter as well as her own through the worst years. She has earned the right to her anger. But she has also earned the right to choose when to let it go.”
Your daughter. Not mine, not ours. The gift of that acknowledgment settles between them.
Vicente stares at Arturo for a long moment, raw gratitude stripped bare in his expression. His throat works. “I know. I am trying to give her that choice. Even if it means she chooses to hate me forever.”
“That is all you can do,” Arturo says quietly.
I watch them sit with that—the acceptance that forgiveness can’t be forced, that staying matters even when reconciliation might never come.
“What you’re describing is grace,” I say. “Giving someone the space to be angry, to forgive on their own timeline if they forgive at all. That takes tremendous restraint.”
Vicente nods slowly, and I wonder if I’m talking to them or to myself.
Chris disappeared from that hotel room without a word. I left Denver and let Wyatt pack up my entire life alone, abandoning him to clean up what I couldn’t face. Tomorrow night I’ll have to tell them both everything and hope they don’t do what I did: run.
“That’s time,” I say gently.
They stand and head toward the door. Arturo hesitates and turns back to me. “About Thanksgiving—we meant it. The invitation. You should come if you’re free.”
“Bring whomever you consider family,” Vicente adds. “We want the house full.”
I should decline. Every professional instinct says this crosses too many lines that are already badly blurred. But the weight of what they’ve just shared makes refusing feel like rejecting more than just a meal.
“I’ll think about it,” I say carefully. “Thank you.”
They leave together, and I’m alone with the weight of what just happened.
My clients just invited me to Thanksgiving.
Their first holiday together in three decades—the one they’ve been planning all session, the one that matters so much they’ve been adding names to the guest list all week.
The same gathering where my best friend and her family will be.
Where I could bring “whomever I consider family.”
The boundaries aren’t just blurred—they’ve dissolved entirely.
The sterilization is scheduled for Friday, three days away. I intended Thanksgiving week for recovery. Which I will very likely need after tomorrow’s barbecue where I’ll have to tell Chris and Wyatt everything.
I sit for several more minutes trying to process that I’ve been invited to a family gathering when I don’t even know what family looks like anymore.
I try to shift my thoughts back to compiling my notes from the session.
They gave me intelligence—Serbian movement through the ports, someone significant consolidating power, possible escalation during holiday rush periods when everyone’s distracted.
But they did it through metaphor and misdirection, through genuine therapeutic content about family and legacy and fear.
Dragons who think water makes them safe.
I pull out my phone and begin recording, then stop. Dragonov. Dragons. It’s not subtle once you see it, but in the moment, it was just conversation.
“Sons of bitches,” I mutter, with genuine admiration. “You played this perfectly.”
My phone buzzes.
CALLIE: Tomorrow’s still good? Mason’s making enough carne asada for an army. Also Chris confirmed he’s coming.
My stomach clenches. All of us in the same space.
If I can make it through the barbecue—through telling Chris and Wyatt the truth—maybe Thanksgiving won’t seem so impossible.
NINA: I’ll be there.
CALLIE: You okay? How are you feeling about seeing them both?
NINA: I’ll manage. See you then.
I set the phone down and walk to the window. The fog has burned off, revealing stark blue sky and the sprawl of Los Angeles beyond. Serbian criminals consolidating power. Celeste building an empire on the skeleton of her fathers’ legacy. Chris and Wyatt preparing for the barbecue, just like I am.
Three days until Friday. Until permanence. Until I never have to fear this particular ghost again.
But first, the barbecue. First, the truth.
I think of Vicente’s willingness to give Elena the choice—even if she chooses to hate him forever. His acceptance that some decisions can’t be forgiven, only lived with.
I can’t control how Chris and Wyatt will react when I tell them. I can only hope they’ll understand that some choices are complicated. That terminating the pregnancy, getting the sterilization—these aren’t rejections of them. They’re about knowing myself completely.
Even if they can’t see it that way.