29. Delia
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
DELIA
There are three names on the page.
Three names, and everyone looked at them like they were the beginning of a war.
Maybe they are.
I sit on the edge of the bed in the room Nash gave me and stare at the hotel stationery until the letters blur.
The paper is thick, cream, expensive in that quiet way rich people prefer, with the hotel’s crest stamped at the top in gold.
I hate it on principle. I hate the pen, too.
Smooth black ink. Heavy body. Perfect weight.
Everything in this penthouse is made to feel tasteful and safe.
It doesn’t fool me.
Across the room, the curtains are drawn over the windows on Ever’s order.
He didn’t raise his voice when he gave it, which somehow made it less optional.
The door is closed but unlocked. Reva’s room is down the hall.
I heard her laugh once earlier, low and exhausted, then fall quiet.
I don’t know which man was with her when she slept. Maybe all of them.
That thought should unsettle me, but it mostly makes me tired.
My sister is loved in a way that looks overwhelming from the outside. Too many hands. Too many eyes. Way too many dicks.
Mostly it’s just too much male certainty gathered around one small, angry, hurting woman.
I wanted to mock it on sight, and I did, because old habits are easier than taking a breath and recognizing it for what it is.
They’re keeping her alive.
They also listen to her far more than I expected they would.
That part is unsettling. I’m not used to authority that respects those it holds in its hand.
Isabel listened only when she had already decided which answer she wanted to punish or approve. Men listened when they wanted weakness. Women listened when they were afraid another girl’s mistake might spill their own blood.
Nash Blackwood listened like my answer could change the map.
Deacon told me I should become La Rosa. Not lead it. Not survive it.
Become it.
The words have been moving under my skin since the meeting ended.
I don’t want La Rosa.
I don’t want its ledgers or its houses or its soldiers with rosary ink beneath their sleeves.
I do not want the women who lower their eyes because they have learned submission looks safer than defiance.
I do not want the ceremonial rooms, the private chapels, the old prayers Isabel twists until faith sounds like a threat.
I don’t want the chair where she sits with her hands folded while other people bleed.
I have spent fifteen years learning every corner of her world so I could survive it. Now they want me to hold it. Worse, they may be right.
That is the part I cannot wrap my head around.
A cartel does not die because its queen does.
It sheds her, mourns her in public, then feeds whatever reaches the crown fastest. Men like Octavio.
Priests with clean cuffs. Accountants with girls in the back of cars.
Cousins who smiled at me over dinner while calculating whether I would be easier to control married or grieving.
If Isabel falls and no one takes the room, the room will take someone.
Possibly Reva.
Probably me.
Maybe both of us.
I look down at the names again.
Teresa. Ana Luisa. Celeste.
Women Isabel thinks she owns because she has never understood the difference between obedience and patience.
The pen rests beside the paper. I pick it up and write a fourth name.
Marisol.
My hand stops after the last letter.
Mother. The word sits in me like a bruise touched too soon.
I’ve called her that for years because Isabel allowed it—Mother, not Mom or Mama.
Because Mother earned the title every day in ways Reva will not know how to forgive yet.
Because she stood between me and worse when she could and paid when she couldn’t.
Because sometimes the only softness in that house was the brush of her hand over my hair after a correction, brief enough that no camera could call it comfort.
Reva met her last night.
Reva’s face when she came back from the hospital told me enough. White around the mouth. Eyes too bright. Hurt turned sharp because anger was the only thing still standing.
I knew this would happen. I just didn’t know it would happen now.
That may be a lie.
Everything is happening now, speeding up and hurtling forward toward some inevitable end none of us can avoid.
Leaning over, I take my phone from the bedside table.
The device is new, one of Ever’s, stripped and rebuilt and as safe as he can make one. He handed it to me after the meeting with a short explanation about call routing I only half understood, then told me nothing was perfectly secure, so talk like someone might be listening.
Practical man.
I type the number from memory. Not the one Mother uses for household matters or Isabel’s errands. The older one. The one she made me learn when I was thirteen after a dinner where Isabel smiled too much at a man who owned ships and daughters.
If you ever need me and cannot say why, call me at this number.
I never did. Maybe I was afraid she would answer. Maybe I was afraid she wouldn’t.
The call connects on the fourth ring. For a second there is only silence.
Then her voice, low and careful. “Yes?”
“It’s me.”
A small intake of breath.
Movement follows. Fabric. A door closing softly. Another few steps. I picture her crossing one of Isabel’s guest salons or stepping into the pantry off the service hall, phone pressed close, face arranged into careful neutral lines for anyone who might pass.
When she speaks again, her voice is quieter. “Are you safe?”
“That’s a broad word.”
“Delia.”
“I’m safe.”
The silence between us thins.
Then her composure cracks, just enough. “What the hell was that?”
I look at the paper on the bedspread. “What the hell was what? Good morning to you, too.”
“Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
“Sound like her.”
That shuts my mouth.
Mother exhales softly on the other end. “I’m sorry.”
I close my eyes. “Don’t apologize. You’re…right. I’m…stalling or masking or something, I don’t even know.”
“All right.”
That is one of the things Mother is good at. Stopping when asked. It should not be rare enough to notice.
She tries again. “The shooting, Delia. Tell me what happened.”
I lean back against the headboard, the phone tight in my hand. “Isabel’s men chased them. Shot at them. What was Isabel thinking, sending men after them in such a sloppy manner? Of course they were going to shoot back.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, yes. That is generally how people with guns respond to being shot at.”
“That is not how it’s being characterized here, of course.”
“Naturally not. I’m sure Blackwood was the aggressor.”
“Something like that.”
The edge in her voice pulls me back to childhood so fast I almost laugh.
Mother never needed Isabel’s coldness to command a room.
Hers was softer. More tired. Usually followed by a damp cloth, a cup of tea, or an instruction whispered in a hallway where punishment could hear us if we breathed wrong.
My throat aches.
“What happened?” I ask. “Who was hurt?”
“A couple of soldiers.”
“Names?”
A pause. Then, “Raúl died before they brought him in.”
I didn’t like Raúl. I’m not sorry.
He once caught a kitchen girl by the wrist hard enough to bruise because she dropped a tray near Isabel’s luncheon table. I stepped on his foot with a heel and smiled through his anger while Mother sent the girl away.
Still, a name is different than a number.
“And?”
“Mateo has a broken arm and a bullet graze. Nicolás was arrested. Isabel is furious.”
“That sounds survivable for everyone except Raúl.”
“Delia.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
I laugh once, quietly. “That’s a dangerous hobby in our family.”
Mother says nothing. The empty line hurts more than a reprimand would have.
I rub two fingers over my forehead, careful of the bruise near my temple. “I’m tired.”
“I am, too.”
My fingers loosen around the phone. “This is exhausting. Trying to keep some people safe. Trying to decide which truth gets someone killed and which lie buys another hour. Trying to protect Reva when she hates being protected and protect you when you won’t admit you need it.”
Mother’s breath trembles. “I know.”
I stare at Marisol written in black ink.
“They want you to come here.”
The line goes very still.
I continue before she can decide silence is safer. “Nash. Deacon. Shiloh. Ever. Reva didn’t say it because she was asleep or pretending to be, and because she might throw something if we make decisions for her again. But they’re ready.”
“For what?”
“To get you out.”
Mother does not answer.
“Or to try,” I add.
Outside my closed door, a floorboard creaks. One of Nash’s men, probably. Or Shiloh pretending not to hover. This place has too many protectors and too few people willing to say they are afraid.
Mother finally speaks. “It’s not that simple.”
“No one here seems confused on that point.”
“If I leave, either openly or secretly, Isabel punishes everyone she thinks helped me. Like Sabine.”
“If I stay—”
“She uses you until there’s nothing left.” My voice breaks on the last word.
Mother hears it. She always hears it. “Delia.”
“No.” I sit forward. “You told me once that surviving is not the same as choosing. I was fifteen and angry, so I pretended I didn’t understand. I understand now.”
Her silence feels almost tangible. I look at the list again, at the names that may become doors or traps or gravestones if I choose wrong.
“I’m going to have to do something I don’t want,” I say.
“What?”
“Become useful in a way Isabel did not design.”
Mother is quiet for a long time. Then, softly, “They asked you to take La Rosa.”
It is not a question. I close my eyes.
“Yes.”
A sound leaves her. It is too small to be grief and too broken to be relief.
“I don’t want it,” I say.
“I never wanted it for you.”
“I know.”
Mother’s voice steadies. “Wanting has rarely mattered to women in this family.”
“It will after.”
The promise is reckless. I make it anyway.
Mother breathes in. “After.”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
Then: “Does Reva know?”
“That I may have to become the monster she came here to kill? We covered the broad strokes.”
“You are not a monster.”
“I have done monstrous things.”
“So have I.”
The words sit between us, heavy and honest. A door closes somewhere on her end of the call. She goes silent. I sit very still, listening to faint voices in the distance. Male. Muffled. One laugh, short and rough. Then footsteps pass away.
When Mother comes back, she is barely above a whisper. “I cannot speak much longer.”
“Can you get out?”
“Yes.”
The answer is too fast.
“Mother.”
A breath. “Not tonight. Not from the main house. Isabel is watching exits because she is angry and because Reva wounded her pride by living loudly.”
That’s a good characterization of Reva.
It makes me smile.
Mother continues, “But there is a charity board visit tomorrow afternoon. Archives committee, St. Agnes House. Isabel will send me because she thinks duty is a leash and paperwork is beneath her. I may be able to create distance there.”
“May.”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.”
Not ideal, but I know better than to demand certainty from a woman walking around inside Isabel’s fist.
“I’ll tell them,” I say.
“Tell Deacon the east gate still sticks after rain. He’ll remember.”
Something in my chest twists at the familiarity. “I don’t like how many things he remembers.”
“No,” Mother says. “Neither will Reva.”
That name changes the line again.
I swallow. “She is angry.”
“She has every right to be.”
“I think…I think she is beginning to understand, though.”
“I can only hope.” This time, her voice does break.
I press my palm hard to my thigh and make myself continue. “She might not forgive you.”
“Shiloh…and I think maybe Deacon? They love her.” Her tone is bewildered.
“Um, yeah. They all do.”
“Oh. Oh, my. Okay, then.” I can hear the blush in her voice. “And you?”
The question is soft enough to slip past my defenses before I can raise them.
I look toward the closed door, as if I could see through walls to the room where Reva sleeps. My sister. My little sister by minutes.
“I don’t know how to do this with her,” I say.
“That does not mean you don’t love her.”
My eyes burn. Annoying.
“Love got people hurt in that house.”
“Yes.”
“So I stopped making it visible.”
“I know, honey.”
This time, the words are almost unbearable because they are true. I pick up the pen and write St. Agnes House beneath the names. East gate sticks after rain.
“They’re going to come for you,” I say. “If you can make it happen.”
Mother exhales. I hear her moving again, a rustle of fabric, a drawer closing, the pieces of a life being touched without being packed.
“All right,” she says. “I’ll make it happen as soon as I can.”
Relief hits wrong. Too sharp. Too close to fear.
“Don’t get caught.”
A sad little breath. “Bossy girl.”
“I learned from terrible women.”
“You learned in spite of them.”
I have to close my eyes for that one.
Voices sound on her end again, closer this time. Mother’s tone changes at once, smoothing out, becoming the woman Isabel expects her to be.
“I have to go.”
“Mother.”
“Yes?”
There are a hundred things I could say.
Be careful.
I’m sorry.
Reva needs you.
I need you.
None of them are safe enough for the line or my throat.
So I say, “East gate. After the rain.”
A pause.
Then, “After the rain.”
The call disconnects. I sit with the silent phone in my hand until the screen goes dark.
On the bed, the page waits. Three names have become four. Four have become a place. A sticking gate. A possible extraction. A thread pulled loose from Isabel’s sleeve.
I pick up the pen again. My hand shakes this time, so I write slowly, drawing a line beneath all of it.
If I am going to become La Rosa, I will start by stealing my mother back from it.