Chapter 53 Chris
Chris
The stairs are a problem.
Fifteen steps, exposed sightlines, no cover. I take them fast and low, Glock up, Wyatt’s footsteps silent behind me. Nina stayed in the bedroom like I told her to—small miracle.
Lightning flashes through the clerestory windows, turning the stairwell into a strobe. White walls, black shadows, everything inverted for a split second before plunging back into nothing.
Another sound. Footsteps. Wet boots on tile.
I flatten myself against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Wyatt mirrors me on the opposite side, moving with the economy of someone who’s done this before. Whatever’s between us, whatever’s broken or healing, none of it matters right now. Right now we’re just two operators clearing a space.
The living room opens up ahead. That massive sectional, the fireplace dark, the wall of glass showing nothing but storm. Rain lashes the windows so hard it sounds like static.
A figure moves in the kitchen.
I track the silhouette, finger finding the trigger guard. The shape is wrong for a threat—too casual, too upright, reaching for something on the counter like they belong here.
The lights come on.
I blink against the sudden brightness, weapon still raised, and find myself staring at Lucia.
She’s soaked. Water dripping from her tactical jacket, pooling on the tile floor. Her dark hair is plastered to her skull, and she’s holding a coffee mug like she was about to make herself at home.
“Jesus Christ, Longo.” She doesn’t flinch at the Glock aimed at her chest. “You want to point that somewhere else?”
I don’t lower the weapon. “How’d you get in?”
“Security codes. Same ones you have.” She sets down the mug, raises both hands in mock surrender. “Perimeter alert didn’t trip because the storm knocked out the exterior sensors.”
“You couldn’t call?”
“Cell towers are down,” Lucia says. “Storm took them out around midnight. There was no way to reach you.”
I check my phone. Full battery, zero bars.
Wyatt steps into the light behind me, his own weapon dropping to his side. “What’s wrong?”
Lucia’s expression shifts. Something careful settling over her features, like she’s about to deliver news nobody wants to hear.
“Mudslide took out one access road, and the other was going. We had maybe an hour to get out before we were completely cut off.” She pauses. “I had to move the principals.”
The principals. Vicente and Arturo.
The floor drops out from under me.
“Move them where?” But I already know. I already know before she answers because where the fuck else would she take them in the middle of a storm with roads washing out.
“Here.” Lucia meets my eyes, her expression only marginally apologetic. “They’re in the car. Darius is with them. I wanted to warn you before I let them inside. Figured you’d need a minute.” She gestures at the coffee mug. “And caffeine.” She returns her attention to the coffee maker.
“You brought them here.” My voice comes out flat. Controlled. The Glock in my hand feels heavier suddenly, and I have to stop myself from tracking it toward the front door.
“I didn’t have a choice, Chris. The canyon house was compromised, not just the weather.
We found surveillance equipment near the access road during the midnight sweep—cameras, comms relay.
Someone’s been watching. They knew where we were, and the roads were already washing out.
The window was closing fast.” She steps closer, lowering her voice like that’ll make this easier to swallow.
“Whoever’s hunting them, they’re getting closer.
This was the only safe location I could get to. ”
“Safe.” The word tastes like ash.
Lucia holds my gaze for a moment longer, then moves to the front door. I hear her call something to Darius, hear the car doors open and close.
They come in out of the storm like refugees from a disaster movie. Darius first, scanning the room with professional efficiency before stepping aside.
Then Vicente. His eyes sweep the room the same way mine did: exits, angles, threats. Some things you don’t unlearn.
His gaze finds me. Holds.
I don’t look away. I don’t flinch. I stand there in my borrowed sweats with my weapon still in my hand, and I let him see whatever the fuck he wants to see.
Arturo follows, one hand at Vicente’s elbow.
Protective. Possessive. After Thanksgiving, there’s something more careful in the way he looks at me—like he’s finally putting pieces together he’d rather not see.
I have no idea if they’ve talked about me behind closed doors, but the session recordings I listened to suggest they probably communicate better than most men in intimate relationships.
Nina materializes beside me. She must have come down when she heard voices. Her hand finds mine, fingers threading through, and the touch is an anchor. A reminder of what’s real. Vicente sees this too and I just hope it isn’t yet another thing he uses for leverage or a mind-fuck.
“I know nobody’s sleeping after this,” Lucia says, all business. “But I need you all to stay in the main living area. Easier to keep eyes on everyone if you’re not spread across the house. And stay away from windows.”
Everyone looks around. The house is essentially made of windows: floor-to-ceiling glass facing the ocean, the band of clerestory windows along the roofline, the kitchen’s glass doors to the side yard.
“Do your best,” Lucia adds drily. She turns to Darius. “Find some towels. We’re all dripping on the hardwood.”
Darius nods, disappears down a hallway, returns a minute later with an armful of towels from a linen closet. He distributes them: Arturo and Vicente first, then Lucia, keeping one for himself.
“There’s a study down the hall,” I say. “More interior walls. Windows have shades.”
Lucia nods. “That works. Vaughn and Tabrizi are on exterior rotation. Darius, you’re at the front gate once we’re settled. Everyone stays together. Easier to keep you alive if I’m not chasing you around the house.”
She looks at Vicente and Arturo, still toweling off. “There’s emergency clothes in the hall closet. Should be something close to your sizes. Darius, grab what’s there.”
“On it,” Darius says. A moment later he returns with a stack of generic gray sweats and t-shirts that match what Wyatt and I wear. Arturo takes them with a murmured thanks, and he and Vicente change right there, no false modesty, just practicality.
Vicente’s watching the rest of us the whole time. That careful blankness he uses when he’s cataloging information, storing it away for later use. I know that look. Five years of proximity burned it into my memory.
Nina steps forward. “The others—Mason and Callie’s family—are they in danger?”
Lucia shakes her head. “This is a targeted operation. Whoever’s funding these hits wants Vicente and Arturo specifically. There’s no indication they’re going after peripheral connections.” She gestures down the hall toward the study. Vicente and Arturo head that direction.
Nina nods, visibly relieved. I hadn’t even thought to ask about the others. She did. Callie’s my sister, and I didn’t even think—
Wyatt’s hand finds my shoulder. Steadying.
“Chris.” Nina’s voice is gentle. Careful, like I’m something that might shatter. “You okay?”
“Define okay.”
“Capable of getting through the next few hours without doing something you’ll regret.”
I consider the question. Consider the man standing ten feet away, toweling off his hair like this is a spa retreat. Consider the weapon I’m still holding, the way my finger hasn’t left the trigger guard since I saw him.
“Yeah.” I set the Glock on the kitchen counter. Safety on. “I can get through the rest of the night.”
Wyatt rests a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. Warm. Solid. Real.
“We’re right here,” he says. “Whatever you need.”
I want to want him dead. It would be simpler if I did.
But I know it wouldn’t help—wouldn’t undo any of it.
I need him to never have touched me. I need to go back five years to that night in Colombia when they dragged me in hog-tied and naked, and I need to have died there instead of becoming what he made me.
I played the part too well. Deep cover means becoming the lie, and some days I believed it so completely I forgot there was anything else.
Now I can’t look at myself without remembering everything I did in his name.
But I can’t have any of that. So I nod, and I let them guide me toward the study.
The room is modern like everything else in this place. Clean lines, low leather sofas, floor-to-ceiling bookcases that look more decorative than functional. A sleek desk dominates one corner, angled to face the door. The main windows have shades, and someone’s already drawn them.
Through the clerestory windows I can see the sky—black and churning, lightning flickering in sheets. The storm’s getting worse, not better. Thunder rolls so close the walls vibrate.
Vicente claims the chair behind the desk without asking, settling in like he owns the place.
Arturo takes one of the leather sofas. Nina and Wyatt and I claim the other, as far from the desk as we can get. Lucia positions herself near the door, laptop open on a side table, one eye on the security feeds. Darius heads out to take his position at the front gate.
Nina’s restless beside me. I can feel it in the way she’s holding herself, contained energy, the therapist in her wanting to crack this room open and make everyone talk. She catches my eye, and I see the question there.
Do you want me to intervene?
I give a small shake of my head. Not yet.
The silence stretches. Rain hammers the roof like fists. Lightning turns everything white, then plunges us back into shadows.
Vicente’s gaze moves from me to Nina to Wyatt. Lingers on Wyatt. On his throat.
The bruises have faded, but they’re still visible. Finger-shaped marks that tell a story.
“You always did like to leave marks, Christopher.” Vicente’s tone is mild. Curious. “I’m glad you found someone who can take it.”
I know what he’s doing. Provoking. Poking at wounds to distract himself from his own fear, or maybe just out of boredom. Part of me wants to let it slide, refuse to give him the satisfaction.
But my hatred is rotting inside me. Poisoning everything I’m trying to build with Nina and Wyatt if I don’t cut it out. And he’s the only one who can help me do that.
“He couldn’t take it.” The words come out quieter than I expect. “I wasn’t there. I was with him, I was supposed to be present, and instead I checked out—went somewhere else—and when I came back my hands were around his throat and he was telling me to stop and I almost didn’t hear him.”
I rise, stalk toward him, jaw clenched so tight my teeth ache. If I’m going to purge this, I’m doing it face to face.
“That’s what you did to me. Five years of being your fuck toy so you could avoid your own fucked up regrets. And now I can’t touch someone I love without becoming what you made me. Without your voice in my head. Without disappearing into the thing you needed me to be.”
My voice cracks on the next part, but I make myself say it anyway.
“It wasn’t always a lie. What I felt—some of it was real. And you took that and you twisted it until I couldn’t tell the difference between wanting you and being afraid of you. You destroyed any chance we ever had of something true.”
Vicente’s face has gone pale. His mouth works but nothing comes out.
Then the armor snaps back into place. “You were a federal agent. You were there to destroy me from the start—”
“So what?” The laugh that comes out of me is ugly. “You didn’t know that. When you were breaking me down, when you were conditioning me to perform, you thought I was just some guy you’d captured. Some nobody you could own.”
“I never—”
“You treated me like property because that’s what you do. What you are. So don’t hide behind my betrayal like it justifies anything. You did what you did because you wanted to. Because you could.”
His jaw tightens. I see the anger flare—the old Vicente, the one who never bent, never admitted fault. For a moment I think he’s going to double down, throw something else at me, keep fighting.
But Arturo’s watching him. And Nina. Vicente’s eyes cut to Wyatt’s throat one more time, and I see it land—really land. What his conditioning did. What it’s still doing. The poison he put in me that’s now leaking onto people I actually love.
It’s Arturo who breaks the silence. “Vicente, is this true?”
Vicente’s expression fractures like the mirror I just held up in front of him. He looks to Arturo, his face a silent plea for understanding. Then back to me.
“Christopher.” His voice is barely a whisper.
“I didn’t... I thought I was making you stronger.
Teaching you to survive. But I was just—” He stops.
Swallows hard. “You’re right. What I did to you—there’s no excuse.
I told myself things that let me sleep at night, but the truth is I used you.
I broke something in you, and I didn’t care because it gave me what I needed. ”
His eyes are wet. I’ve never seen that before. Not once in five years.
“I’m sorry.” The words seem to cost him something vital. “I know that’s not enough. I know it doesn’t fix—”
The clerestory window explodes inward.
Glass everywhere, raining down in a thousand glittering pieces.
Vicente jerks backward, a red bloom spreading across his chest. Someone’s screaming. It might be me.
Then everything is chaos.
Nina’s moving before I can process it, dropping to her knees beside Vicente, reaching for his wound before Wyatt hauls her away, through a door into an adjoining bathroom that has no windows.
Arturo’s face is white with shock, bent over Vicente slumped in the desk chair.
His face is still stricken from his apology, his confession, as if he hasn’t caught up to the fact that he’s just been shot.
“Shooter on the roof!” Lucia’s shouting into her radio. “East side, I need eyes—Vaughn, Tabrizi, anyone copy?” Then, “Longo, secure Amador and Flores!”
I leap into motion, shoving one of the towels at Arturo who presses it to Vicente’s chest, then urge him to help me move the other man out of sight of the windows.
I haul Vicente through the doorway where Wyatt took Nina, lay him on the rug where Arturo and Nina both bend over him.
Wyatt shares a glance with me and then we’re both up, no words needed.
We grab our firearms from where we left them on a side table.
“Two shooters!” Lucia again, listening to something in her earpiece. “We’ve got two—one on the roof, one east side. The east one took the shot.”
Two shooters. Professional hit team.
Two. The word echoes in my skull. Nina said it hours ago—the Yakuza sent “one of their own.” If Kedmi is the Mossad contractor, and the Yakuza sent a separate operative—
I should have caught that. I was too busy drowning in my own bullshit to put it together.