8. Chapter Eight #2
Diego already waiting swings open the gate before I reach it. Joaquin’s cousin is heavier now, the lines in his face etched deeper. Beard flecked with silver, eyes still black as gunmetal. He steps toward me, wrapping a calloused hand around the back of my neck, pulling me into a brutal embrace.
“Mi hermano,” he murmurs roughly, words laced with smoke and age.
I grip him back just as tight. “Diego.”
No other words needed.
Inside, the house breathes like old wounds, tile floors, faded family photos, Virgin Mary candles flickering next to bullet casings on the mantel. Cartel, Colombian, and Catholic, all twisted together like barbed wire. The air smells like arepas and gun oil, incense and lingering cigarette smoke.
It smells like my childhood.
This is home.
Rosa sees me and crosses the room instantly, pulling me into an embrace that feels like a fucking lifeline. She kisses my cheek, cups my face between her palms, no judgment, no questions. She knows the blood on my hands. Always has.
“?Tienes hambre, carino?” She eyes me sharply, already opening the fridge, ignoring my dismissive grunt.
Are you hungry, sweetheart?
“No estoy aquí por comida, Rosa.”
I’m not here for food, Rosa.
She tuts softly, muttering something about orgullo estúpido, but squeezes my arm gently before backing away. Rosa’s warmth always cuts deeper than knives, grace I never deserved and still don’t know how to handle.
I drop onto the worn couch. The springs protest under my weight, old leather groaning like bones in the dark. Diego pours rum without asking. Real shit, unfiltered and burning straight down, harsh enough to taste like penance.
“Ramos?” Diego asks flatly, swirling his glass. No hesitation. No dance.
“Dead,” I answer. Like I’m talking about weather.
Diego doesn’t flinch. “Fucker had it coming.”
We drink in silence, the ceiling fan humming above us like a lullaby for the damned. Outside, a woman laughs in Spanish. Music echoes down the block. Life pulses outside these walls, dull, distant, irrelevant.
We talk business, what’s left of the Everglades pipeline, the fed heat tightening in Brickell, shipments that need rerouting.
Diego doesn’t ease into it. He never does. “Heard about New York.”
My jaw ticks. “You been watching the feeds?”
He smirks darkly. “Who do you think set those fucking feeds up, hermano?”
Leaning forward, Diego locks eyes with me, voice edged with something rougher than sympathy. “She’s in your blood now. Infecting you.”
“She’s under my skin,” I correct him coldly, teeth gritted tight. “I never asked for that.”
He shrugs, casual, unbothered. “Doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
Draining my glass, I set it down with a sharp crack that echoes off the worn wooden table.
“She was supposed to be leverage,” I bite out bitterly. “An opening. Just a fuck. A pawn on my board.”
“And now?” Diego’s voice goes soft, dangerous.
Now?
Now, I can’t breathe without hearing her voice.
Now, I’m haunted by her confession in that fucking rec room, cracked open, whispered, a sacred wound bleeding in front of a child.
“He hurt me…he touched me…pushed me…”
I can’t unhear that. Can’t unsee Camille giving away a piece of herself like it didn’t rip her wide open to say it.
And Joaquin’s report? Fucking spotless.
Too spotless.
Someone paid heavily to erase that night, no name, no charges, nothing but shadows and ghosts.
I’ve killed men for less.
“She’s the only thing I want clean,” I whisper, the words slipping out raw and rough. “Everything else can rot.”
Diego goes quiet. Doesn’t mock me, doesn’t laugh. He just nods slowly, gaze heavy with something he knows far too fucking well.
“You understand what’s happening, don’t you? What this feeling really is?”
“I know what I’m doing,” I snap quietly.
“You’re playing with fire, Kane,” he says, voice low. “Holding your hands out, thinking you won’t burn. But obsession doesn’t end clean, it ends bloody. Yours or hers.”
I feel my jaw tick, stubbornness iron-clad. “Then I’ll fucking bleed.”
Diego leans back slowly, chair creaking under his heavy frame. Silence spreads between us, thick and suffocating, the silence of men who’ve seen too many graves filled, too many lives lost.
“She’s not like us,” Diego finally says, tapping his chest, the sound hollow. “She wasn’t forged in the dark. She grew up smiling for cameras, not running from bullets. She doesn’t understand men like us. What we do to survive.”
“She will,” I answer flatly.
Diego laughs softly, bitterly, shaking his head. “We all say that shit. Until the day you realize you’ve dragged her down so deep she can’t find the way back up.”
I drain the last drops, glass clinking hard onto the table. “She walked into my world willingly.”
Diego’s eyes sharpen, darkness swimming in his gaze. “Maybe. But did she see the blood underneath? Did you show her all the graves buried beneath your empire?”
He stands slowly, heavily, crossing to the window to peer into the street before letting the curtain fall back into place. His voice is softer now, carrying the weight of something ancient and tragic.
“You remember Esperanza Vargas?”
My chest tightens instantly. A ghost resurrected from old wounds. Before Rosa.
“Yeah,” I rasp.
He nods once, slow. “She was my fire.”
Turning around, his face is etched deep with regret, pain sharp and raw behind his eyes.
“And I buried her.”
The room seems to darken, the shadows pressing closer. He continues, voice rougher, frayed at the edges.
“She loved me,” he whispers hoarsely, “Loved me through the raids, through interrogations, even after they clipped her brother just to hurt me. Love didn’t protect her, hermano, it branded her.”
He pauses, gaze boring into mine.
“And obsession…it branded me.”
I stay quiet, tension coiling tighter inside my chest, teeth grinding together painfully.
“I see it,” Diego says finally, his voice flat, mercilessly gentle. “You think you’re in control, but this isn’t chess.”
My reply is barely audible, “It’s always chess.”
Diego crosses back to me, gripping my shoulder firmly.
“No, Kane,” he murmurs. “Chess has fucking rules.”
He holds my stare another beat, then releases me.
His words linger heavy in the silence until the hallway lights flick on abruptly. Small feet pound over tile floors, the slam of the screen door jolting the stillness like a storm.
A familiar voice shatters the silence:
“?Tío Kane!”
Lucía.
Diego’s youngest daughter.
Fourteen years old, going on forty.
She charges into the room like a hurricane made human. Curls bouncing, attitude sharp, wearing a worn t-shirt that says Latina & Legendary and mismatched socks. She’s clutching a glitter-covered binder in one hand and a pair of flip-flops in the other.
“?NO TE VAYAS!” she barks. Don’t you dare leave.
Don’t leave.
I turn just in time to catch her as she launches herself into my chest like a missile. I grunt as she nearly knocks the wind out of me.
“Dios mío,” I mutter, wrapping my arms around her. “You trying to break my ribs, terremoto?”
“You deserve it,” she says, pulling back to glare up at me, brown eyes blazing. “You didn’t call. Again.”
I smirk, because she reminds me of Rosa when she’s pissed.
“Been busy.”
“Busy murdering people?” she quips without missing a beat. “Busy laundering money? Huh, tío criminal?”
I laugh, low in my throat. Diego mutters behind her, “Lucía…”
“What? We all know he’s a villain with good eyebrows,” she huffs, planting her fists on her hips. “But you promised me.”
My brow lifts. “Promised you what?”
She slams the glitter binder against my chest like she’s serving a subpoena. “My quinceanera. It’s in two months, pendejo. And if you don’t show up, I will never speak to you again.”
Diego coughs into his cigar. “Language.”
“You’re not invited either if you take his side,” she snaps.
I grin and flip open the binder. It’s chaos, pink sticky notes, glittery pen doodles, a floor plan of a dance hall, and a very dramatic dress sketch that looks like it belongs in a telenovela.
“Damn,” I murmur. “You’re really doing it up, huh?”
She snatches it back. “Of course, I am. I only get one quince. Unless I marry rich and dramatic and throw myself a vow renewal in Italy, which could totally happen, but that’s not the point.”
Before I can answer, two more voices drift from the kitchen door.
“Did she threaten to cancel the quince again?” Reina calls out, amusement thick in her tone.
“She’s been canceling it daily since Tuesday,” Marisol adds, walking barefoot across the tile with a bag of hot chips in hand and not a single ounce of concern on her face.
The twins.
Reina and Marisol. Twenty, stunning, deadly, and fluent in every form of psychological warfare.
They collapse onto the outdoor couch like they’re watching a reality show, Reina raises a glass of something green, Marisol tosses a chip into her mouth.
“Lucía’s been manifesting your arrival,” Reina says, crossing one leg over the other. “Told Mom she had a dream you were going to skip town without promising to wear the tux.”
“What tux?” I ask.
“Dusty rose,” Marisol says, completely serious. “With a matching boutonnière and zero veto power.”
I stare at them. “You’re joking.”
“She’s not,” Lucía says, arms crossed. “You are walking me in. You get the honor.”
I lower myself into the chair again, sighing. “I’ll be there.”
Her eyes narrow. “Swear it.”
“I swear.”
“Swear on your gun.”
I grin. “Which one?”
She smacks my arm and kisses my cheek before I can dodge it. “Good. Because if you ghost me, I’m getting my revenge on TikTok. I’ve got your old mugshot saved in my drafts.”
Diego snorts into his drink. “She’s serious.”
“I know she is,” I mutter.
Lucía turns like a queen and storms back inside, muttering something about cake vendors and how if her cousins wear Crocs, she’s canceling the whole thing again.
Reina grins as she watches her go. “She loves you, you know.”