20 - Adrian #2
With every ounce of willpower I possess, I leave her semi-naked and sprawling on my couch and sit up, then pull her to sitting beside me.
I draw her attention to the sketches laid out on the coffee table, with every detail I've obsessed over.
The bedroom that would stay hers if she needs solitude.
The kitchen expanded to restaurant grade because why not.
The study with watchmaker's tools and proper lighting, for the broken things she fixes when she can't sleep.
"Look, carina. This room would be your workshop. Temperature controlled, perfect lighting."
The weight of what I know presses against my ribs. Fourteen years of carrying the truth about that day at the quarry. Watching her rebuild herself from a grief I could explain but never will. The sketches feel like building something solid over that secret.
"You planned all this?" Her voice carries wonder now, her fingers tracing where our bedroom would be.
"I plan everything about you." The admission comes out raw. I keep expecting her to run when faced with my truth, but she doesn’t.
She's quiet for a long moment, studying the designs. Where the four spaces would become one. Where our separate lives would fuse into something inseparable. Then she turns, straddling my lap, the shirt riding up to her waist.
"Show me the rest," she says, rocking against my already hardening cock. "But first, show me how much you want this future."
I flip her onto her back on the couch, the sketches scattering. "I'll show you exactly how much I want every future with you."
Then finally, I reach down and free my aching cock then push into her, shivering in bliss.
Later, she's asleep in the surveillance apartment's bed, our bodies still tangled, her skin still flushed from our fucking. The sheet barely covers her, and I trace the marks I've left on her throat, her thighs, evidence of my hunger that never seems to fade.
My phone buzzes. My sister’s search databases update every twelve hours. Facial recognition, missing persons reports, foster care records I maybe shouldn't have access to.
Tonight's alert: a possible match in Tampa. A woman the right age, similar features. My heart stops then races, the same pattern for almost two decades of false leads.
I open the full report. The photo loads slowly, pixels assembling into a face that isn't my sister.
Close enough that the algorithm flagged it, but the eyes are wrong.
The chin too sharp. Another dead end in my search for Zoila, while every breath I take is about protecting Isa from her past. These two needs define me.
Finding my lost sister and keeping the woman I love safe from truths that would destroy her.
I close the database, set the phone aside. In the wall, I can see the holes I drilled when I first moved in. My original surveillance posts, now just connection points between spaces.
It buzzes again before it hits the nightstand. Logan, no preamble: They took the Ochoa Street shipment at the port tonight. Four men, professional, knew our routes. Ruiz's hand is broken in three places. They carved a message into the crate they left behind: ?DóNDE ESTá NUESTRO MUCHACHO?
Where is our boy.
I know where their boy is. Their boy is wherever Logan's crew puts problems that surface at four in the morning, and the only man in Miami who could end this — who could walk into the Zayas' warehouse tomorrow and settle the account with a name — is lying in a surveillance apartment with his hand on the hip of the reason it happened.
I could stop the bleeding tonight. The price is a war or a confession, and I'm not willing to pay either while she's asleep against my chest.
Handled, I text back, but it isn't, and Logan will know it isn't, and I put the phone face-down anyway.
My baby shifts in her sleep, the sheet sliding down to reveal the curve of her hip. My cock goes hard so fast it aches.
The city could burn tonight and I'd let it, long as she's safe. The Lins could hire a dozen investigators and I'll handle each one. Whatever comes hunting for her, I'll stand between it and her.
Because I know what really happened to their daughter. I know what Isa can't fully remember through the drug haze and trauma. I know the truth that would destroy her if it surfaced, and I'll bury anyone who gets close to it.
My phone buzzes again. Text from my contact who's watching the Lins.
"Private investigator hired. Already in Miami asking questions about your girl. Former cop, good at his job."
The threat sharpens into something concrete. Not just suspicious parents but an actual professional, trained to find buried truths. In Miami, my territory, asking questions about the life I've built for her.
I delete the message, already running through who to call. Miguel to handle police records. Logan to create documentation. Gabriel as the respectable front. The investigator will find what I let him find. Success story, bartender makes good, nothing unusual about her rise.
I'll burn their questions to ash before they reach her. Let them try to touch what's mine.
I slip back into bed, pulling Isa against me. She murmurs something in her sleep, pressing back into my chest. My cock hardens against her ass, and I press kisses to her shoulder, breathing in the scent of her skin. My soap, my sheets, my cum still inside her.
She turns in my arms, eyes fluttering open. "Adrian?"
"Shh, mi amor. Just holding you."
"Hold tighter," she mumbles, still half-asleep.
I do, wrapping myself around her like armor, like a cage, like a promise. Whatever comes for her. The Lins, investigators, the truth itself. It'll have to go through me first.