29 - Isa #2
"You were right though," she pulls back, eyes red but fierce. "I needed to stop being afraid. I just… couldn't do it yet."
Eleanor pulls Juliet toward the office, already mother-henning about dry clothes and hot coffee, and Leonardo makes calls to cancel whatever revenge he’d planned.
But Eleanor stops beside me first, close enough that only I hear. Up close she is small and immaculate and more frightening than her husband will ever be.
"You called us yourself. You told the truth and stood still for whatever came.
" Her eyes hold mine, cold arithmetic moving behind them.
"That's the only reason tonight ends in a conversation.
But understand this, Isa Navarro. Miami called New York in the middle of the night, and New York came.
That's on the books now. One day we'll call it in — and when we do, the answer is yes. "
She doesn't wait for a reply. Queens don't.
Leonardo pauses in front of Adrian on his way out, unhurried, examining the blood he put on his face like a craftsman checking his work. "Next time family goes missing on your coast, lead with the phone call." A beat. "And put ice on that."
The others melt into the shadows, leaving me standing in the middle of La Sirena with blood under my fingernails and Adrian still standing there bloodied. The Lins' blood has gone dark, flaking off my wrists where it's started to dry.
Adrian hasn't moved from where Leonardo struck him.
Blood still trickles from his nose, and he's touching his jaw where a bruise is already forming.
He watches me with those eyes that see everything and reveal nothing.
Even bloodied, even struck down, he radiates that magnetic pull that makes my body respond against my will.
I cross to him, my hands shake as I touch his face, checking the damage. His nose isn't broken, just bloodied. The bruise on his jaw already darkening. Leonardo hits hard, but Adrian's taken worse. We both have.
"You look like hell," I tell him, using my sleeve to wipe blood from his upper lip. He catches my wrist, holds it. His thumb finds my pulse, pressing where it hammers. Even now, even broken and bloodied, he tracks my heartbeat like he owns it. Maybe he does.
Then I'm holding him, pulling him against me, this man who took a beating for me even while we're broken.
His cologne, tobacco and lime, mixes with the copper scent of blood.
My body flushes with inappropriate heat.
He's bleeding from Leonardo's punch, I'm covered in my dead friend’s parents’ blood, and God help me, I want him.
Want to claim him right here on La Sirena's floor, let everyone see that he's mine.
"You look like you've been busy." His gaze travels over me, taking in the blood that isn't his. His voice drops lower, rougher. "Beautiful."
"I killed them." The confession falls out simple and clear. "The Lins. Meiling's parents. They threatened you. Threatened La Sirena. So I…" I stop, but he already knows the rest. Can read it in the blood under my fingernails.
"I figured." Complete calm. Not 'you did it to protect me, so it's okay.' Not 'they deserved it.' Just acknowledgment, like I've told him something he already knew. "When you walked in covered in blood, I figured."
The simplicity of his acceptance breaks something in me.
The knot in my chest that's been there since half my life, that terrible certainty that I'm poison, loosens.
My lungs expand fully for the first time in years.
This is what it feels like to be seen completely and still be wanted.
My skin flushes with it, heat that has nothing to do with shame and everything to do with being claimed by someone who knows exactly what I am.
No shock, no judgment, no attempt to reframe what I've done into something noble. Just Adrian, seeing exactly what I am. Someone who kills when cornered, who protects with violence, who chose his life over two grieving parents. And not flinching.
The love I've been fighting crashes through me like a fever breaking. My chest cracks open, everything I've been holding back flooding through. Want, need, the terrible tenderness of being seen. My body shakes with it, this reversal that feels like drowning and breathing at once.
"You're not afraid of me," I realize.
"Never have been." His fingers trace my jaw, leaving trails of heat. "Never will be."
The anger I've been carrying since his confession starts to crack. The fear that's driven me for so long, that if anyone really saw me, they'd know I was poison, dissolves against the reality of Adrian's steady gaze. He's always known. It never mattered.
I kiss him, tasting blood and bourbon, and he groans into my mouth.
My hands frame his bruised face while his find my waist, pulling me against him and fixing everything broken between us.
The kiss is desperate, claiming, a promise that we're not done.
That we can climb from this. His tongue slides against mine.
This is how we climb. Bloody, damaged, but choosing each other anyway.