Chapter 5
MARCO
Icouldn’t stand the way my collar dug into my neck with every turn I made. The suit felt more like torture than clothing. It was hard to breathe, and it felt like someone’s hands were tightening around my neck.
I pulled at it again, but it didn’t help much.
Near the doorway, an intern lingered nervously with her clipboard held tightly against her chest. She looked young, maybe twenty-six at most, and every time our eyes met, her cheeks flushed pink.
I didn’t dwell on her nervousness. It was probably just another side effect of Remy’s company. He’d always had a talent for making others feel inadequate.
Remy strode in a moment later. He flashed a broad grin, clapping my shoulder. “You look sharp,” he commented, sliding into the seat opposite me.
I stayed silent. He knew exactly how uncomfortable I was, and acknowledging it would only give him satisfaction.
“What’s the point of this meeting, Remy? Why am I here?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “I thought about the situation. You’ll need a permanent place. I’ve arranged a few apartment viewings. Prime spots.”
“Don’t bother.”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not staying,” I clarified, adjusting my cuffs impatiently. “I’ll handle whatever mess you’ve dragged me into this time, but then I’m leaving.”
Remy leaned back in his chair. “Come on—just consider it. Nice places. Top floor, quiet. I pay well.”
“Keep your money,” I snapped.
“You’re wasting your talent on the military. This is your element. Courtrooms. City life.”
I shook my head, dismissing the idea immediately. He didn’t know me at all. This environment drained me, elevated my stress. I couldn’t stand the endless walls and the reflective surfaces everywhere.
“You were always brilliant at this stuff,” Remy continued. “Even back when we were sixteen, I saw how quickly you understood people, how effortlessly you handled situations. I knew you’d go far.”
Why was everyone pushing me? First Dr. Carter, now Remy.
“Listen, Marco.” Remy pressed further. “You may hate law, but you excel at it. Better than most. You’d easily replace half the attorneys on my team and outperform them all.”
“I told you, I’m not interested.”
“Not interested?” He leaned back, gesturing dramatically. “In earning real money? Bigger than anything you’ll make at your government job. No more paperwork.”
“It’s not about the money,” I stated firmly. “You already know that.”
He nodded, his smile slowly fading. “But you’re running out of reasons to say no.”
“This isn’t my life, Remy. It’s yours. I’m only passing through.”
Ignoring me, Remy placed a folder filled with apartment listings neatly on the table. His persistence annoyed me deeply.
“I’m not relocating here,” I repeated with irritation.
“Just humor me,” he insisted. “At least check them out. Spacious, big windows, no claustrophobia.”
Claustrophobia? He tossed the word around as if he knew what it meant—as if he had any idea.
He didn't know the first thing about being trapped, about waking up at night and not knowing where you were, about feeling the walls close in tighter with every single breath you took. He joked about things that weren’t jokes—things he had no right to joke about.
He had no idea what it felt like to carry all that inside and still pretend to function.
He lost that right the moment he left.
“I don’t care about views,” I said, my voice strained as I tried hard to keep the bitterness down.
“Right.” Remy smirked, careless. “Because looking up once in a while might kill you.”
My pulse quickened, blood rushing in my ears. He didn’t know how close to the truth that was. How could he joke about something he knew nothing about? It took everything in me not to snap—not to stand and shove the goddamn folder off the desk and show him just how thin my patience had worn.
He assumed he’d delivered a clever remark, but it only ignited my anger.
“What did you say?”
He blinked, surprised. “Relax, Marco—”
“No,” I interrupted firmly. “I’ve made myself clear. This ends today.”
He started to respond, but I cut him off decisively.
“I’m not settling in your city, not renting your overpriced apartments, and definitely not fixing whatever disaster you’ve created. Do you understand me?”
“You’re overreacting—”
“Overreacting?” My chair scraped the floor as I stood. “You drag me here, stick me in an office, and expect my compliance just because you’re incapable of cleaning up your own mess?”
“Marco—”
“Don’t bother,” I said coldly. “Use your lawyers. Use your resources.”
The room felt unbearably small and the tie impossibly tight. I loosened it roughly, moving toward the door without another glance.
My jaw tightened painfully as I resisted the urge to look back. I didn’t trust myself not to say something I couldn’t take back.
The door clicked softly behind me, but my tightness didn’t ease. Each step down the hallway tightened the knot in my chest. When the doors slid open to an empty elevator, relief washed over me briefly. At least no forced small talk.
The entire trip felt pointless. I should’ve refused outright from the start. Yet a sentimental part of me couldn’t abandon the kid who’d once been my friend, my confidant—the one who’d left me behind.
My reflection stared back at me from a storefront. Seeing myself caught me off-guard, so I hurried into a nearby corner store to avoid it.
I kept my head lowered, focused on the faded linoleum flooring as I walked toward the back of the store. After grabbing a water bottle from the cooler, I turned toward the cashier. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a familiar flash of pink.
My head snapped up.
That pink coat.
I remembered it clearly—it was impossible not to. The woman wearing it stood near the chips, turned away from me.
I could’ve turned around and walked out. I could’ve pretended I hadn’t seen her.
But I didn’t. My feet stayed rooted to the spot for some reason. She didn’t notice me—not at first—too focused on the bag of Cheetos in her hand. Her fingers toyed with the edge of it absently, her other hand clutching a crumpled twenty as if it were all she had left.
Maybe it was.
Her head dipped lower, her hair falling across her face as she bent toward the cooler. She opened the door and pulled out a tall can of beer.
She hesitated, holding it for a second before setting it in her basket. Her hand lingered on the cooler door, brushing against the glass as if she couldn’t quite pull herself away.
Then she grabbed a bottle of wine from the shelf.
Cheap wine.
Ten dollars, tops.
Judging by the tremble in her fingers as she adjusted the basket on her arm, she was barely keeping it together. The wine, the beer, the crumpled twenty.
Pathetic, I told myself. But the thought felt hollow, like a reflex instead of a conviction.
When she turned, her eyes landed on me. Recognition sparked, but it wasn’t the warm kind.
She had that look—the one that probably got her whatever she wanted without her having to try.
Big brown eyes framed by lashes so thick I wondered if they were real, paired with lips curved into the kind of half-smile that made me question my better judgment.
She was shorter than I realized, even in the heels. Barely came up to my shoulder. But the way she stood, with her shoulders back and her chin slightly tilted, made her seem taller. Confident. Or at least good at pretending.
Everything about her was deceptively soft.
Her face was youthful: rounded cheeks and full lips, eyes dark enough to hide every thought but expressive enough to tell me she was annoyed I was watching.
Her hair was long, dark, tumbling in loose waves down her back.
The kind of hair that probably got tangled in everything.
Her body was something else entirely—curves that looked like they’d been drawn with intention and hips designed to sway, whether she meant them to or not. She was dressed simply in tight jeans and a shirt that fit her a little too well. An outfit intended to look effortless, but it never was.
She looked Latina, maybe Colombian, though I couldn’t be sure.
“You again,” she said, acknowledging me as if she were as caught off-guard as I was.
“Yeah,” I replied, not really knowing what else to say. I hadn’t expected to see her again, let alone in this part of the city.
“Pick one for me,” she said, glancing at the wine and the beer.
“Uh . . .” I started, standing in front of the cooler. “Wine.”
“Which flavor?”
“Blackberry.”
“You have good taste,” she said, reaching her hand into the cooler to switch it out with the one she’d grabbed previously.
I didn’t have good taste—I didn’t even drink—but I did have a good memory. She’d been begging the clerk at that bodega for the same wine and a pack of smokes the last time I saw her.
Her voice, the desperation in it—it had stuck with me. Maybe because I hadn’t seen anyone beg like that before.
Or maybe because I’d been the reason she’d needed to, but I didn’t want to think about that.
“What about you? What’re you getting?” she asked.
I lifted the water bottle in my hand, and her eyebrows shot up.
“That’s it? You’re in a bodega, surrounded by every junk food imaginable, and you’re leaving with water?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re wasting the trip, suit.”
“Maybe.”
Her eyes drifted over me, catching on the tie I hadn’t bothered to fix and the jacket that felt tighter by the second. “Big meeting?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“What do you do?”
It didn’t feel right to lie to her. “I’m a lawyer.”
She let out a soft huff, almost like a laugh, but it was too bitter to land. “Figures.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
She tilted her head, the corner of her mouth twitching as if she wanted to smile but didn’t bother. “Nothing. You just seem like the type. Buttoned-up. Always knowing the rules, probably never breaking them.”
I didn’t respond. Let her think what she wanted.
“Corporate?” she pressed, her curiosity apparently outweighing her need to leave.
“No,” I said, shifting my weight. “Defense.”
“Defense,” she repeated. “So you spend your days saving the world?”
“Not the world,” I said. “Just the people in it.”
“Hmm.” She adjusted the basket on her arm, her fingers tightening around the plastic handle. “What’s that like?”
“What?”
“Defending people,” she said, glancing at me sideways. “Do they always deserve it?”
It wasn’t a simple question. I didn’t have a simple answer. Her expression was somewhere else now, like she wasn’t really asking about the people I defended but about something more personal.
“Does it matter if they do?” I asked.
Her brow furrowed, her lips parting slightly before she pressed them back together. “I guess not,” she said, turning back to the cooler. “Not when you’re getting paid anyway.”
There was no malice in her tone, but it still landed like a jab. She pulled the basket higher up on her arm, glancing at me. I reached for it and carried it to the register for her. I added my water to the pile, and the clerk looked at me.
“Together?” he asked.
“What?” I asked, then I looked down at the items: Cheetos, blackberry wine, and a bottle of water. He was asking if it was all on one bill. “Oh. Sure.”
The woman sidled up beside me. “Wait—what’re you doing?”
“Paying,” I said simply.
I wasn’t sure why I was paying. Maybe because it was only fourteen dollars.
“Generous of you.”
Was it?
The plastic crinkled as I handed the bag to her. She hesitated before taking it, her fingers brushing mine for the briefest moment. Her grip tightened on the handles as she stepped back.
“Well, thanks for the charity, mijo,” she said, thanking me like it mattered. Maybe it did to her.
Mijo.
I hated that she’d called me that. It brought back too many unwanted memories.
“It’s not charity,” I corrected. “It’s fourteen dollars.”
“Generous and condescending,” she said as she turned toward the door. “Lucky me.”
The bell over the door jingled as she stepped outside, her coat flashing pink against the muted gray of the street. I stayed where I was, the plastic countertop cold under my palms.
Was it generous? I wasn’t sure anymore. It didn’t feel like generosity. It felt like penance. Cheap and hollow, wrapped in a bag with wine and Cheetos.
The clerk coughed, dragging my attention back. “Want your change?”
I shook my head, pushing off the counter. “Keep it.”
When I stepped outside, I lit the end of a cigarette and saw she was already halfway down the block. I told myself I wasn’t watching her, but my eyes stayed locked on the pink coat until it disappeared around the corner.
It wasn’t charity.
It sure as hell wasn’t generosity.
It was guilt.