Chapter 24 - Nico
She’s not really sleeping. Just hiding somewhere I can’t follow.
She's curled on her side, hands tucked against her chest like she's protecting something vital. The woman who fills every room she enters has made herself as small as possible.
Even destroyed, even hollow, she's beautiful in a way that makes my chest tight. Her vulnerability doesn't diminish the want. It transforms it into something fiercer, more protective. The silk pajamas cling to her curves, and I force my gaze away.
The rage sits cold in my chest, patient as winter.
Not the hot fury of combat but something arctic, calculating.
Cesar Vega arranged a woman's body to replicate an eight-year-old trauma.
He called her "carina" while planning this.
He put his hands on her yesterday, touched her face while her world shattered.
Those will be the last words he speaks with an intact jaw.
My hands ache. Not from pull-ups but from the physical need to hurt someone. The pressure behind my sternum won't release until Cesar is bleeding under my hands. My jaw aches from clenching. There's a metallic taste in my mouth from adrenaline and fury mixing into something toxic.
Control. Not yet. Not until she's safe.
Another message. Marco:
What do you need?
Marco's offer isn't just brotherly support. It's the promise of Rosetti soldiers, Rosetti money, Rosetti vengeance. The full weight of our machine ready to deploy. I type back: Working on it.
Four hundred and twenty-five minutes now.
Each breath counts, marking time in this vigil.
I've run every angle while she hides in that place between sleep and consciousness.
The wiped footage means Cesar has people inside La Sirena.
The media already has the story. Someone leaked details about the sealed room, her presence, the body.
Architecture, not impulse. Everything Cesar does is patient, meticulous.
My phone buzzes again. The lawyer Marco keeps on retainer:
Authorities want interview. Negotiating terms.
I set the phone down, watch her breathe. She shifts slightly, and her hair brushes my wrist where it rests on the bed. Even now, exhausted and traumatized, my body responds to her proximity, blood heating at the simple contact.
She surfaces around ten AM. Not waking, just her eyes opening slowly, taking a moment to remember where she is and why everything hurts.
I see the exact moment it hits her. The body. The room. The blue wallpaper. Her eyes go flat.
"Hi." Her voice is stripped of everything that makes her Marisol. No warmth, no chaos, no tactical banana jokes.
"Hi."
She sits up mechanically. Goes to the bathroom.
The shower runs for forty minutes while I make coffee and check updates.
Three more from Gunner about movement at the estate.
One from the lawyer about managing media narrative.
The smell of her shampoo drifts out. Vanilla and jasmine cutting through my focus.
She emerges scrubbed raw. Hair wet, no makeup. Younger, fragile, like someone peeled the Marisol Delgado persona off and left the girl underneath exposed. Her skin is pink from the hot water, and I notice the slight tremor in her hands as she reaches for the coffee mug.
"Have authorities been in contact?" Her voice is flat, clinical.
"They want to talk. The lawyer's handling it."
I steady her mug as her hands shake, our fingers brushing. The contact grounds us both, just for a moment.
"Media?"
"Someone leaked. It's everywhere."
"Cesar?"
"At the estate since early morning. With your father."
She absorbs each hit without flinching. That's what scares me. The thousand-yard stare. I've seen it in the mirror, on Marines after Helmand. The body is present. The person has temporarily evacuated.
She makes lists. Asks smart questions about evidence, timeline, legal exposure. But the light is off. The woman who called me Horse Man, who drank my terrible coffee, who grabbed my cock on a boat? She's gone. What's left is efficient. Controlled. Empty.
I recognize this. After Afghanistan, after the compound breach where that mother and child died under rubble I created, I went operational for weeks. The feelings didn't come until later. When they did, they nearly killed me.
She's in that phase now. The hollow functionality that keeps you moving when stopping means drowning. Her trauma response is different from mine. I do pull-ups until my hands bleed; she goes hollow and hyper-functional. But it's the same mechanism. Same war.
"I need to tell you everything." She sets down her coffee, and something shifts. The hollow look cracking, something rawer underneath. "Not like last night. All of it."
I sit. Wait. Pour her water, my hand covering hers briefly as I pass the glass, grounding the emotional weight in physical contact.
"I was eighteen. Six months after Mom died. Still wearing her robe to sleep in." Her voice is steady, terrible in its clarity. "My brother called at two AM. His voice was wrong. High, fractured. 'Mari, I need you. Something happened at La Sirena.'"
She tells me about finding him with the body. The woman on the couch, lips faintly blue. Her brother saying over and over that she wouldn't wake up. How she called Cesar because he was the only adult she trusted.
Her breathing changes as she approaches the harder truth. Shorter, shallower. I can hear the shift, the way her body fights saying the words.
Then the part she's never said.
"I felt relief." The words come out like shards of glass. "When Cesar's fixer made it disappear. When my brother left for seminary. When the room was sealed. A woman died and I felt relief that it was over. That I didn't have to deal with it."
Her hands shake harder. I take them in mine, feeling how cold they've gone. "I never learned her name. Eight years and I never looked her up. She was just… a problem that got solved."
The shame sits between us, heavy as lead.
"You were eighteen," I say carefully. "Your mother had just died. You were in survival mode."
She shakes her head, not believing.
"You didn't kill that woman. You just helped your brother fix whatever actually happened. You called the only adult you trusted because you were a child in crisis." I lean forward, keeping her hands in mine. "And Cesar didn't fix it out of love. From that moment on, he owned both of you."
She stares at me, processing the tactical reframe.
"Eight years of keeping you dependent, keeping you isolated, keeping your brother in exile. All of it building to this moment. He's held that leverage like a weapon, waiting for the right time to use it."
"You think he's been planning this for eight years?"
"The control, yes. Maybe not the specifics. But last night?" My jaw tightens. "Months of groundwork. The embezzlement stories, the tabloid narratives. All of it was preparing for this."
The confession empties her differently than this morning's hollowness. Lighter, like she's set down a weight she's been carrying so long her body didn't know it was there.
We move to the couch. She curls against me, and I hold her while Miami gleams beyond the windows, oblivious.
No talking for a while. Just breathing together.
My hand in her hair, the other resting where my Glock usually sits.
Empty now, but my fingers keep finding that space, muscle memory of violence while I offer comfort.
Her fingers trace the memorial dates on my forearm.
"I haven't had a drink since the bar."
I know. I've been tracking.
"The old me would be three bottles deep right now."
"I know."
"I don't want it. I thought I would. After last night. But I just want…" She doesn't finish.
I wait.
"This. I just want this."
My arm tightens around her. She breathes against me, and I fight not to squeeze her until she bursts.
She falls asleep against me. Exhausted. Real sleep this time, not the twitching half-consciousness of last night. Deep. Trusting.
I watch her face, the tension smoothing out. The faint freckles she hides with makeup. The curve of her mouth. Her hair still damp from the shower, smelling like vanilla. Her body warm against mine, soft in sleep.
The feeling sits in my chest, unnamed but absolute.
I know what it is. Have known for days. But the word itself feels foreign, dangerous, like ammunition I'm not trained to handle.
Three syllables that change everything, that I'll tell her when she's ready to hear them.
When she's not drowning. When the timing is right.
My phone lights up repeatedly while I scroll through watching her world burn on every screen. Each headline another nail in the coffin Cesar's building around her.
Marco: Timeline?
I understand what he's asking. How long before I need the full Rosetti machine deployed?
I type back: Soon.
More updates flooding in. Cesar visiting the estate this morning, playing the devoted uncle to Jorge. Media narrative building: "BODY FOUND IN DELGADO HEIRESS'S SEALED VIP ROOM." The embezzlement stories were just groundwork. Everything leading to this moment.
She breathes against me while her reputation dies in real-time.
The authorities will push for an interview within days, maybe sooner if the lawyer can't stall.
Her public conviction is already forming.
Her father's dying faith in her is being shattered by Cesar's whispers.
Every hour I hold her is an hour Cesar gains ground.
But today she sleeps. And underneath the stillness, the soldier plans.
Not defense anymore. Not damage control.
Offense.
I'll make him suffer. Not a bullet. Too quick. My hands around his throat while I explain exactly why. While I make him understand that he touched what's mine. That he used her trauma as a weapon. That he called her "carina" while planning her destruction.
The rage has gone past hot or cold. It's become structural, load-bearing, the thing holding me together while she falls apart.
When the time comes, and it's coming soon, Cesar will learn the difference between a man who manipulates and a man who eliminates.
He's probably sleeping soundly in his expensive sheets, thinking he's won.
He won't sleep again.
She shifts in her sleep, pressing closer, seeking my warmth even unconscious. Her hand moves across my chest, searching, then stills over my heart. Right where those three syllables wait, heavy as loaded weapons. Her fingers curl into my shirt, anchoring herself to me.
The gesture breaks something in my chest. This woman who's been betrayed by everyone who should have protected her still reaches for me in sleep. Still trusts me to keep the monsters away.
Her breathing deepens, and she murmurs something against my chest. My name, maybe, or just sounds of contentment.
The softness of it, the complete vulnerability, makes my throat tight.
She fits against me perfectly, like she was designed for this space.
Like she belongs here, in my arms, while I plan murder.
I press my lips to the top of her head, breathing her in. Vanilla and flowers and something that's just her.
Her fingers tighten in my shirt, holding on even in dreams. Trusting me completely.
Not knowing I am one of the monsters.