12. Nash #3
Deacon’s gun appears in his hand. Mine follows. Sabine steps backward into the deepest part of the awning shadow, one hand under the hem of her blouse where she carries a blade or a compact pistol. The alley holds its breath.
A cat slips from behind a trash bin, gray and thin, offended by our suspicion.
It darts across the courtyard and vanishes under the gate.
For one ridiculous second, I think of Homer.
Reva’s cat has probably colonized the cabin by now and found some new surface to defile. Reva will pretend not to love him for it. She will pretend not to love all of us for the things we do badly in her name.
Sabine lowers her hand. “This meeting is done.”
Deacon hesitates. “Sabine.”
“No.” Her voice sharpens. “Do not make this sentimental because you need me to forgive you before you burn down the rest of your life.”
The words land between them with history attached. Deacon stands very still, then gives a single clipped nod.
I understand then that she did love him, in whatever way a woman can love a man who belongs to violence before he belongs to himself. I also understand that she is smart enough to know he has no part of himself left to give her.
Reva has it. I think Sabine might know that, too.
She steps past him, then pauses at the mouth of the alley. “Delia is stronger than Isabel thinks.”
“She is,” Deacon says.
“So is the other one?”
My answer comes before Deacon’s. “Stronger.”
Sabine looks back at me. I don’t soften it with a smile.
Reva is anger, grief, desire, impulse, mouth, fear, heart. She is too much for her own body on most days and far too much for any man who mistakes possession for protection. She is also the woman who shot a man over Cal’s bleeding body and still apologized for making survival difficult.
“Yes,” Sabine says at last. “I figured that was the case.”
Then she is gone. We wait three minutes before moving.
Ever tracks the alley cameras and gives us a clean route back to the car we left six blocks away. The rain has started again by the time we reach it, soft against the windshield, turning the streetlights into long gold smears across the glass.
Deacon drives because he knows the city’s underbelly better than I do tonight, and because I need both hands free to unfold Sabine’s schedule and build the shape of our next mistake.
For several blocks, neither of us speaks.
Then Deacon says, “You can’t use Delia as bait.”
I look out at the wet street. “I am trying to make sure nobody uses either one of them as bait.”
His hands tighten on the wheel.
I let the silence stretch because I know men like Deacon. Silence works on them if you let it grow teeth.
At last, I say, “You have to decide before this goes any farther whether you are extracting Delia for Delia, for Reva, or for yourself.”
His eyes remain on the road. “Careful.”
“You say that often.”
“You ignore it often.”
“I will keep ignoring it until you answer.”
A muscle jumps in his cheek. “For Delia because she deserves to be free. For Reva because leaving her sister in that house will poison her by inches. For myself because I have been Isabel’s lapdog too long, and I am done with that.”
It is more honest than I expected.
I guess I respect it.
“And when Delia does not want the freedom you hand her?” I ask. “When she wants the house, the name, the power, the parts of La Rosa she believes she can turn? What then?”
He says nothing for almost a mile.
Then, “Then we learn what kind of throne Isabel built and how much blood it takes to move it.”
I look at him. He still has his eyes on the road.
This is what Reva does not see yet. Killing Isabel will be easy compared to everything that comes after.
La Rosa will not vanish because its matriarch bleeds out.
Men will reach. Women will maneuver. Old debts will wake.
Territory will tremble. The sisters are the blood of that line whether they want the inheritance or not.
Ever’s voice returns in my ear. “Reva is asking for an update.”
My chest tightens.
“Tell her we’re coming back with intel,” I say.
A pause.
“She asked if intel is code for one of you bleeding.”
Despite myself, my mouth moves. Deacon glances over.
“Tell her no,” I say. “For once.”
Ever’s voice warms by the barest degree. “Copy.”
I fold Sabine’s paper again and hold it in my hand as the city slides past the windows. Delia in public within forty-eight hours. A route. A moment of hesitation. A possible extraction that could save one sister while painting a target on the other.
The car turns toward the water, toward the hidden road that leads back to the marsh and the woman waiting there with more courage than patience.
I do not know how to keep Reva safe without making her feel caged.
I do not know how to free Delia without starting a war I cannot fully control.
I do know Isabel has made the same mistake many people make with dangerous women. She believes love is the weakness because it makes people hesitate.
She has never understood the other side of it.
Love is also what makes men like us stop hesitating at all.