Chapter 54 Chris
Chris
“Wyatt, with me.” I’m already moving toward the door. “Lucia, stay with them.”
“Darius isn’t responding,” Lucia says, her voice tight. “He was at the front gate.”
Fuck. They took him out first.
We go out through the side door, into the teeth of the storm. The rain hits like needles, wind tearing at my clothes. Visibility is shit—maybe twenty feet before everything dissolves into black and gray.
The yard slopes toward the cliff’s edge. Landscaped terraces, the long lap pool with its infinity edge, water churning from the rain and spilling over into nothing. In flashes of lightning, the whole thing looks apocalyptic.
Movement on the roofline of the main house. Two figures grappling, struggling for position. One of them is tall and broad shouldered, dark-haired.
Another flash of lightning and I catch a glimpse of his face. Rafael. Rafael Marcano, who came out of nowhere and is on the brink of falling off the roof.
“That’s one of them,” I say. “Where’s the other?”
A shape drops from the roof on the far side of the house. Lands in a controlled roll, comes up running. I train my gun on them then drop it back to my side. It’s a woman.
Tatiana.
She spots us, changes direction, closes the distance in seconds.
“Second shooter!” She has to shout over the wind. “East side, heading for the bluff. He’s the one who fired.”
“I’ve got him.” Wyatt’s already moving.
“Go,” I tell Tatiana. “Back him up. I’ll help Rafael.”
She nods once and disappears into the storm after Wyatt.
I turn back to the roof just in time to see Rafael and his opponent tumble over the edge.
They hit the terrace hard, rolling down the slope toward the pool. Rafael tries to get his feet under him but the assassin’s faster—a brutal kick to the ribs sends Rafael splashing into the water.
The assassin pulls a pistol, aims at Rafael’s head just as he surfaces. I’m sprinting across the lawn—thirty yards of wet grass between me and a bullet I can’t stop.
I fire.
My round catches him in the shoulder, spinning him halfway around. It buys Rafael a second. He swims away, puts distance between them, but the assassin’s already recovering, tracking Rafael with his weapon despite the blood spreading across his dark jacket.
Tatiana comes out of the darkness at a dead run, doesn’t slow down, doesn’t hesitate. Two shots to the center of the back, one to the head. The assassin staggers forward, hits the pool’s edge, and topples in.
He floats face-down and utterly still.
Rafael drags himself onto the deck, on his hands and knees. Tatiana crosses to him, checks his injuries with brisk efficiency.
“You good?” she asks.
“Define good.” He coughs up water. “You just saved my life.”
“You tracked them here. Couldn’t have found the second one without your work.”
Lightning splits the sky, close enough that the thunder comes instantly. The rain’s coming sideways now, the storm reaching its peak.
“The other shooter?” I ask.
“Booth has him. East side of the house.” Tatiana swipes wet hair out of her eyes, unbothered by the chaos around her. “Alive. Wounded, but talking.”
Rafael’s sitting up now, shivering. His eyes find Tatiana’s and stay there, then drift down—taking in the way her soaked jeans and sweater cling to her, the leather jacket doing nothing to hide the curves underneath.
When his gaze makes its way back to her face, she’s watching him with something that might be amusement.
Christ. She’s going to destroy him.
“You’re the tail I picked up in Topanga,” he says.
“And you’re the one I couldn’t shake in the canyon.” Her voice is flat, but there’s something underneath. “Good instincts.”
“You too.”
For a moment, they just look at each other. Then Tatiana offers him a hand up, and he takes it.
Vicente.
The thought hits and my legs are already moving, carrying me back toward the house before I can stop them. I hate that I care. Hate that five years of conditioning still has me running toward him instead of away.
Arturo’s still working on Vicente when I get back. There’s blood everywhere, soaked into the rug, smeared across Arturo’s hands and forearms. But Vicente’s chest is rising and falling, and Arturo’s voice is steady as he follows instructions from someone on the phone.
Nina’s holding the screen where he can see it. Callie’s face fills the frame, her expression tight with focus.
“Keep the pressure steady. Don’t let up even if he screams.”
“The house belongs to my doctor,” Arturo says without looking up. “Medical supplies in the kitchen.”
Callie’s eyes flick past him and land on me. Her focus breaks for a split second. “Chris, you look like absolute shit. Call me the second this is over or I swear to God—”
“Love you too, Cal.”
“Arturo, I need you to check the exit wound—”
She’s already back to work.
“How bad?” I ask.
“Chest wound, left side. Missed the heart, but he’s losing blood fast.” Callie’s voice is clipped, professional. “He needs a hospital. Now.”
Rafael’s in the doorway. His face is pale beneath the bruises, body rigid. He looks like someone watching a house burn that he never got to live in.
“Road into Santa Monica is blocked,” he says. “Mudslide. We saw it coming through the canyon.” He looks around, but the other half of “we” has disappeared. I don’t remember seeing Tatiana leave but I’m not surprised she’s already gone.
Arturo looks up—and freezes. His eyes lock on Rafael’s face, scanning the features, and I watch the recognition hit. “Dios mío,” he breathes. Then he shakes it off, turns back to the wound. “We need a helicopter.”
Lucia’s already on it, barking into her satellite phone. Medical evac. Coordinates. The urgency of a man bleeding out on a bathroom floor.
Wyatt appears in the doorway, rain-soaked, with a zip-tied man in tactical gear stumbling ahead of him. The second shooter. Alive, like Tatiana said. Wounded in the leg, but conscious.
“Found Darius,” Wyatt says. “Unconscious at the gate, but breathing. Vaughn is with him.”
One less body to worry about.
I should feel something. Satisfaction that we got one of them alive. Relief that it wasn’t one of ours who took the bullet.
Instead I feel hollow. The confrontation we just had, the words finally spoken, and now Vicente might die before either of us knows what to do with them.
Vicente’s eyes flutter open. Find mine.
“Chris.” His voice is barely a whisper. “Christopher.”
I cross to him. Kneel down, staying out of Nina’s way.
“Save your strength.”
“No. Listen.” His bloody hand catches my wrist, grip weaker than I’ve ever felt it.
“I wasted so much time. Thirty years hating Arturo for something that wasn’t his fault.
Five years using you to fill a hole I should have filled myself.
” His breath rattles. “You deserved better. You deserved someone who saw you, not someone who—who made you into a mirror for his own damage.”
I don’t pull away.
“I know,” I say.
Arturo’s hands are steady on the wound but his voice isn’t. “Por favor, Dios, no me lo quites ahora. Acabo de recuperarlo. Por favor.”
Please, God, don’t take him from me now. I just got him back. Please.
The words hit somewhere I wasn’t expecting.
Vicente told me once, in a rare unguarded moment, about the night that drove them apart.
One night when they were young, just the two of them without Lola between them—and Arturo couldn’t face what it meant.
Ran from it. Ran from Vicente. And they spent thirty years punishing each other for that shame.
If they can find their way back after all that wreckage, maybe I’m not beyond saving either.
“Helicopter’s eight minutes out,” Lucia says. “They’ll fly him inland to West Hills—UCLA has a trauma center there.”
“I know it,” Callie says from the phone. “I’ll call ahead.”
Vicente’s grip loosens on my wrist. His eyes flutter.
“Stay awake,” Callie says. “Vicente. Stay with us.”
He doesn’t respond.
The helicopter lands on the back lawn, rotors flattening what’s left of the storm into swirling chaos.
The paramedics take over, their movements efficient and grim. Vicente’s on a stretcher, IV in his arm, oxygen mask over his face. Arturo’s right beside him, refusing to let go of his hand.
“I’m going with him,” Arturo says. Not a question.
“Agents will meet you at West Hills,” Lucia tells him. “We need to secure this location and make sure there aren’t more coming.”
Rafael steps toward the helicopter. He’s soaked, bruised, blood smeared across his temple, but he hasn’t left Vicente’s side since we got back inside.
Arturo looks at him. Really looks.
“Get in,” Arturo says. “You’re our son. Of course you’re coming with us.”
Rafael’s shoulders tense, then release. He nods once and climbs in.
The helicopter lifts off, disappearing into the gray sky. The storm’s finally breaking, rain softening, the worst of it moving inland.
I watch it go. Nina slides her arm around my waist. Wyatt’s shoulder presses against my other side.
“He might not make it,” Nina says quietly.
“I know.”
“How do you feel about that?”
I consider the question. The man who shaped me, who broke me, who finally offered something that looked like genuine remorse. The man bleeding out in a helicopter somewhere over the Pacific.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Ask me when this is over.”
If it’s ever over. If any of this ever ends.
Somewhere in the house, Lucia’s securing the captured assassin for interrogation. The other one’s been pulled from the pool—Yakuza, based on the tattoos running up his forearms. Just like Rafael tried to warn us. Rafael’s in a helicopter watching his biological father hover between life and death.
And I’m standing here, with Nina and Wyatt, trying to figure out what comes next.
“We should go inside,” Wyatt says. “Lucia will want to debrief.”
“In a minute.”
The clouds are thinning now, the first pale light of dawn bleeding through. The pool is still churning from the rain, bloodstains darkening the travertine where they pulled the body out.
“I said it,” I tell them. “Everything I’ve been carrying. I said it out loud. And he heard me.”
“How does that feel?” Nina asks.
“I don’t know that either.” I take a breath. “But it’s out now. It’s real.”
“That matters,” Wyatt says.
“Does it?”
“It matters to you.” He squeezes my shoulder. “That’s enough for now.”
I turn away from the ocean. Nina’s on one side, Wyatt on the other. They don’t ask me if I’m okay. They already know the answer.