34. Reva #2
“Moved by tonight,” Delia says. “Not to another La Rosa property. Somewhere clean.”
Nash steps onto the terrace now because this part belongs to him too, whether I like it or not. “I have places.”
Delia’s gaze shifts to him. “I assumed.”
“They’ll have documents, protection, and options.”
“Options,” Marisol repeats softly.
The word feels more radical than bullets.
Deacon remains by the doorway, arms crossed, face shadowed. Ever stands near the terrace steps with Homer’s leash wrapped loosely around his hand because the cat has apparently decided he respects men with boundary issues. Shiloh leans against the doorframe, quiet for once.
Delia sits straighter in the chair Isabel used to own.
“I’m not keeping the old structure.”
“No,” Nash agrees.
“I’m not inheriting trafficking routes.”
“No.”
“I’m not marrying some stranger for leverage.”
A flicker of something passes through the doorway.
From inside the house, where Konstantin Volkov has arrived with two of his men and the kind of silence that carries its own weather.
I didn’t hear him come in. Neither did Delia.
Her head turns.
Konstantin stops just inside the terrace doors. Black suit, pale shirt, no tie. He looks less like a grieving son today and more like the man his father’s funeral revealed him to be. Controlled. Dangerous. Patient enough to be unsettling.
His gaze goes to Delia, then to the folder in front of her. Then to Marisol.
“I was told to come through the side entrance,” he says.
His accent gives the words a slow weight.
Delia’s mouth tightens. “I’m sure you were also told this was a family lunch.”
“Yes.” He looks briefly at Homer, who is now trying to murder Ever’s shoe. “I see that.”
Sonny leans toward me. “Is he part of the cartel thing, or did someone order a Bond villain?”
“Both, maybe.”
Konstantin’s eyes flick to Sonny. She smiles brightly and waggles her fingertips.
He looks back at Delia, and for one second the air between them catches the way it did in the church. Lightly. Barely…but just enough to make Delia’s spine stiffen.
“We can discuss route transfers later,” she says.
“I didn’t come for routes.”
“No?”
“I came to offer condolences.”
“I really don’t need those.”
His mouth almost curves. Delia’s eyes narrow.
I glance at Marisol, because if this is some betrothal nonsense, I need an early warning and possibly a blunt object. Marisol’s face gives nothing away, which is a mother skill I find increasingly annoying.
Konstantin inclines his head. “I’ll return later.”
“That would be best.”
He turns to leave, then pauses. “The chair suits you poorly.”
Every man on the terrace goes still.
Delia’s expression turns lethal. “Excuse me?”
“I’m glad,” Konstantin says. “If it suited you, I would worry.”
Then he leaves. The silence after him is thick, save for Delia’s sputtering.
Sonny raises one hand. “I have several questions.”
“Get in line.”
Delia looks down at the table like she wants to set it on fire with her mind. Her cheeks have a little color in them now, and I decide not to point that out because I value my life.
Marisol clears her throat. “As I was saying.”
“No,” Delia says. “We are absolutely not moving on as if Russian thundercloud Ken did not just insult my chair posture and then walk out before I could come up with a good comeback. I mean…the nerve of that man!”
Shiloh loses the fight and laughs. Even Nash’s mouth moves faintly. For one strange, impossible moment, Isabel’s terrace holds something close to normality.
Then Delia looks at the folder again, and the moment settles into purpose. She does take the formal head position.
There is no other clean way through.
She has the marks. The training. The recognition. The machinery. The people inside La Rosa know her face and her pain and the shape Isabel tried to force her into. They watched her stand in a church while her grandmother bled out on stone, and they watched her remain standing afterward.
They need someone to look at.
So they look at Delia.
But she is not Isabel. That becomes the first rule.
Reva does not become La Rosa. That becomes the second.
I stand beside my sister when the old guard comes in.
I stand there when the women file through, one by one, to tell Delia which doors Isabel left locked and which girls were trained to smile through fear.
I stand there while Marisol corrects records with a steady voice and shaking hands.
I stand there when Deacon names men who need to disappear and Nash names assets that can become legitimate before anyone else grabs them.
I stand there because I survived the order. Because Isabel said kill the younger girl, and the younger girl grew up with teeth. That gives me a kind of authority I never asked for and don’t fully understand.
I am not a queen. I am the check.
The ghost at Delia’s shoulder. The warning. The proof that La Rosa’s old rules failed.
When Delia says punishment rooms are gone, I stand beside her.
When someone asks what replaces them, I say, “Nothing.”
When an old soldier laughs, Deacon takes one step forward, and the laugh dies.
When a woman with silver in her hair asks what happens to the children already promised, Delia says, “They aren’t promised anymore.”
When a man asks who will enforce that, Nash smiles. I’ve seen men pale less under gunfire.
By dusk, my feet hurt, my head pounds, and Isabel’s house has begun to feel less like a mausoleum and more like a crime scene being converted into something that might, with enough bleach and violence, become useful.
It won’t become good. I’m not naive enough for that.
Less hungry, maybe. Less cruel. A place with sharp teeth turned outward for once.