Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
The café door chimed as Bea stepped inside. Selene Griffin was already at their usual table by the window, silk scarf loose at her throat, espresso in front of her.
“Theia.” Bea smiled, sliding into the seat opposite and setting a small cooler bag on the table. “Today’s contraband. Kimchi, version three.”
Bea had long since stopped calling her Selene. Unless the connection was professional, she’d been raised not to call her elders by their first name. She could practically hear Umma’s voice scolding her in her head every time.
When she finally admitted as much, Selene had only laughed and offered a new title, seeming, if anything, pleased that it tied them nearer. It struck Bea that someone like Elena King wouldn’t have allowed it. To her, ‘auntie’ without blood would sound like presumption, not regard.
Selene reached for the Tupperware with a warm smile. “Thank you. Theios and I ate the last one in a single sitting. Though I did see him drink a glass of milk later.”
Theia. Theios. She was actually calling Selene and Leon Griffin auntie and uncle. What even was this life? “This one’s gentler. For Greek and Westhavian tastebuds.”
Selene reached into her Birkin bag and drew out a white pastry box tied with navy ribbon. “Baklava. Not Turkish style, proper Greek this time. My grandmother’s recipe. I thought, Bea will like this one, it’s flakier.”
“Are you sure you didn’t buy these? They’re perfect,” Bea teased.
Selene looked indignant. “I even used lemons from the trees your Theios insists on keeping alive. Do you happen to need twenty pounds more?”
“I still have the two you gave me last week.” Bea laughed. “Lillian’s been putting slices in her water just to make a dent.”
The server appeared with their spanakopita and heavily dressed Greek salad without asking. Six months of weekly lunches had trained him well.
“How are you, since we last spoke?”
Bea poured them each water. “I’ve been well. Work, uni, and the GEP is practically a second degree. Jaxon’s low-key more stressed about my capstone project than I am. I think I’ve had about four early nights in the last month.”
Selene scanned her like a commander deciding if Bea could survive another march. “You’re young enough to get away with it. But I hope you’re keeping some hours for yourself.”
“I read sometimes,” Bea said with a little grin.
“Speaking of which, Umma’s latest recommendation is a Canadian indie writer.
How do you feel about shape-shifting Highlanders?
I just thought after Tolstoy, your group has earned the right to read about a man in a kilt who sneezes himself into a wolf. ”
Selene burst out laughing, hand to her chest. “Finally. Something with life in it. Give me every title. We’ll cleanse the palate.”
Bea Cruz, corrupter of mothers.
Responsible for Rafael Griffin’s mom reading about plaid-clad wolfmen. The image of Selene’s circle of friends dissecting The Laird Who Barked at Midnight over plates of baklava nearly finished her.
“They sound like the kind of women who’d actually enjoy it,” Bea said. She knew Selene’s book club was made of her longtime friends, women who knew the name Griffin before it was stapled to Ventures.
“They would,” Selene replied, eyes crinkling. “Our tastes are not high society. We traded paperbacks at the school gate and raided the libraries.”
“I love that,” Bea said. “I hope Claire and I are the same way. It must be amazing to know people for so long.”
“It is. We argue, we eat, we laugh too loud. It keeps me honest. Reminds me of when Rafael was young.” Selene’s eyes softened. “I saw him this weekend.”
Bea didn’t tense the way she had in the early months.
It was different now; he wasn’t a name she avoided.
In fact, it would be more accurate to say that the past couple of lunches she’d been a little self-conscious because Selene’s son was the topic of half of her late-night thoughts…
and those thoughts weren’t at all innocent.
Did a mother sense that kind of thing?
“Do you see him often?” Bea asked.
“He’d say yes. But a mother is never satisfied.” Selene sighed.
Bea set down her cutlery. “You never really talk about him.”
“That’s intentional.”
“I know.” Bea picked up her glass. “But…you can, if you want to.”
Selene studied her for a moment. “What do you want to know?”
Some reflex in her wanted to laugh it off. Everything about Rafael had always felt like more than she could handle. In the past, her strategy had been to keep him at arm’s length. But that wasn’t going to work anymore. Not when she’d started to ache to understand him.
Maybe if she could map the boy he’d been, the man would feel less overwhelming.
And perhaps better to hear about him from his mother’s mouth, like staring at the sun in a reflection instead of straight-on.
“Anything.”
Everything.
“Like?”
Man, Selene could be brutal. It was the same tone Rafael used when he had her cornered: calm, amused, knowing she’d fold eventually. Doubtless ran in the family.
Bea sipped her water to stall, the glass cool against hands that felt too warm. “Maybe just…how he is?”
Selene’s gaze rested on Bea longer than was comfortable. They both knew it was the limpest of limp prompts. Still, she leaned back, set her fork neatly aside, as though she’d been ready for this opening, however it came.
“When he was eight, Leon took him to one of our bigger construction sites. He wandered off, and we found him perched on the top steel beam of the frame, nearly sixty feet up, eating the sandwich I’d packed him.” She chuckled, remembering. “I laugh now but you can imagine he scared me to death.”
“What was he doing up there?” Bea breathed, already invested.
“He told Leon he’d been timing the cranes. He’d noticed the operators swung them in a pattern. Wanted to see if he could predict the exact moment they’d pass.”
Bea tilted her head. “Why?”
“We asked. He said, ‘So I can know when to run.’”
A shiver traced her spine. At eight she’d been obsessed with sticker books. Meanwhile Rafael was apparently rehearsing for a future as master of the wrecking balls. “That’s kind of…extraordinary.”
It occurred to her it was that same brain, the one tuned to timing and patterns, that followed her now. Waiting for the exact second to close the distance.
“That year, he had more…energy than he knew what to do with. Leon had always kept him close, but he started giving him responsibility. Marking plans, checking measurements twice, carrying tools that mattered if he dropped them. We did all we could to teach him to aim himself. Not to stop moving—he was never going to stop—but to move with purpose.”
Bea could picture it: a boy with dirt on his cheeks and tools in his hands, all that vigor and daring forced into something productive.
Selene reached for her fork again, digging into her salad with a smile. “You asked how he is.” Her blue eyes lifted, locking on Bea’s. “Kopela mou, he’s never been any other way.”
Bea’s stomach dropped. She’d been hoping his mother might soften the edges. Instead, she confirmed he was exactly as he appeared.
Rafael hadn’t grown into danger. He’d been born carrying it.
She was right to be wary of fire. It didn’t stop politely, or leave things untouched. And some reckless part of her had started to wonder whether that was even a bad thing.
Class had wrung her out.
Bea’s gi was damp at the collar, her wrists sore from bad grips, hair sticking to her neck. She wanted a shower, carbs, and eight hours of sleep, in that order.
Instead, she hunted down Manny. Her credit card payment had failed two weeks in a row and the online system wouldn’t let her fix it. The front desk girl had pointed her toward “the office,” which she hadn’t even known existed.
She padded down the corridor, just past the men’s locker rooms. Light peeked out through the gaps of an unmarked door.
Bea knocked, knuckles barely grazing the wood.
“Come in,” Manny’s voice called.
She pushed the door open. “I didn’t even know you had an office.”
“Not exactly mine, the boss’s.” He shrugged.
Bea glanced at the wall above the desk, not thinking, just caught by the reflection of light on a glass-framed certificate.
Certificate of Operation
HAVOC COMBAT SYSTEMS
St. Ives and Northgate
Owner: Rafael Griffin
She blinked. Once. Again.
That can’t be right.
She moved two steps closer. The words didn’t change.
Her fingertips and toes went cold. She must have looked like an icon buffering, stuck in place while her brain processed.
“You okay, Scholarship?” Manny asked as if through a tunnel.
She finally found her voice. “Is Rafael the owner of this gym?”
Manny’s eyes flicked toward the certificate. He scratched the back of his neck, sheepish. “Uh…yeah.”
Bea’s head turned to him. “Do you know that I know him?”
“I figured.” He leaned back in his chair a fraction, giving the vibe of not wanting to be in reach. At any other time it would have been hilarious, considering he could pack her into a suitcase if he wanted. “Don’t take it out on me, kid. Wasn’t my business to object.”
Her voice dropped. “Are you implying that Rafael told you not to tell me?”
Manny lifted both hands as if the five-foot-five white belt might take a swing at him. “I’m implying the boss said to let you be. Simple.”
She dragged in a breath through her nose, sharp enough it almost whistled. Simple? Nothing about this was simple. Two years at St. Ives, seven months at Northgate. His walls. His mats.
She remembered something. “The three-month trial I got at the start. Did anyone else get it?”
Manny gave her a look. “Kid, no one gets three months. Not even me.”
She didn’t think so. “Is he coming here tonight?”
“Yep.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Good.”
RAFAEL
MANNY: She knows.
Rafael’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. About time.
The drive to the Northgate branch wasn’t long, but it felt like every red light existed to ask him if he was ready for this. He was. He’d been ready for years.
When Rafael stepped into the gym, the air still carried that post-class humidity.
Bea was waiting at the top of the corridor, changed into tights and a pale grey hoodie, hair damp from her shower. Her body practically hummed—every line of her tight, vibrating like a bowstring drawn back.
“You.” It wasn’t a greeting. It was an indictment dressed as a word.
The classes had mostly emptied, but there were still a dozen people around finishing off workouts. He caught her wrist, grip firm but not biting, and drew her down the hallway, into his office. The door closed behind them with a solid click.
He dropped the bag, then turned to face her. “Me.”
Her hands flexed at her sides. “How long?”
Rafael leaned back on the desk, lowering himself enough to meet her eye-line. “Be specific.”
“The gyms,” Bea ground out. “How long have they been yours?”
“Always.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Anger laced her voice; underneath was something raw.
“You would’ve gone to some other man’s gym,” he answered. “Why should I give him the right to watch over you, when it could be mine?”
“You kept it from me,” Bea accused. “Just like the fact that you’re El Jefe.”
“I didn’t trap you into either of them,” he said evenly. “You stumbled into both yourself.”
Her nostrils flared. It annoyed her that he was right.
He sat up higher, careful not to get too tall. “I didn’t tell you because it didn’t matter. You were his. And the only thing it would have done was give you more excuses to run.”
He could practically hear her gnashing her teeth. “You don’t know that.”
“Actually, I do. I know you better than you think, little Bea.”
Her breath hitched. For long moments they just stared at each other.
“What is it you want from me?”
Finally.
The question he’d been waiting to hear, the one he had a hundred responses to.
Rafael rose to his full height, and crossed the space until she had to tilt her chin up. Everything in him strained toward her.
He could feel the alarm and awareness she tried to bury. But she didn’t step back. “For you to stop fighting yourself when it comes to me.”
Her chest rose, denial on her lips. But it never made it past her throat. Instead he saw the flash of want, fast and unfiltered, before she shoved it back down under caution and common sense.
He’d landed dead center on their problem.
“Don’t hide behind silence, little Bea. If you have something to say, say it. I’m listening.”
She didn’t.
She spun, quick, her steps clipped as if speed could disguise what it really was: retreat.