Chapter 25 – thiago
Twenty-Five
thiago
My apartment is quiet when I get home. It’s always this way.
Empty. Until recently, that was my preference.
Being alone works for me because what I do for Helios isn’t something I can hide from friends, family, or anyone close enough to notice the cracks.
I stopped forming attachments a long time ago because of that, and I’ve never had a reason to question it.
But tonight, the silence bothers me.
I toss my keys onto the kitchen counter and look around the space, already knowing why.
Remi isn’t here.
“Fuck,” I mutter with a hollow laugh.
Forty-eight hours ago, she trusted me enough to give me pieces of herself I know weren’t easy for her to share. Tonight, I’m standing alone in my kitchen, wishing I could hear her talking shit from across the room.
I can pretend this is business all I want, but I know the truth.
I’m getting too close, thinking about her when she isn’t around, wanting to touch her, and making excuses to see her again.
None of that is part of the assignment. The more I learn about who she really is, the harder it becomes to reconcile that woman with everything I’ve been told about her family.
Opening the junk drawer, I look for the charger I keep forgetting to store in my truck, and move aside batteries, pens, and shit I haven’t touched since moving in.
Something black catches beneath them, and I stop.
The worn leather is instantly familiar as I pull it free, even after all these years.
It’s my father’s old detective notebook.
I run my thumb along the faded edge before opening it. His handwriting fills the first page, compact and hurried, with a date at the top and notes from a case I don’t recognize beneath. Names, times, a license plate, and a phone number circled twice.
Flipping through a few more pages, I find the same thing. Pieces of investigations he probably forgot about as soon as the cases closed. It’s evidence of a life that ended long before I was ready for it.
I haven’t opened this in years.
For some reason, I think about Remi’s ring again and what she told me when she placed it in my hand.
We all have a story, Thiago. Sometimes it’s ugly and tainted, but without it, we wouldn’t be who we are.
Maybe that’s why I don’t put the notebook back. I leave it on the counter and pick up my phone instead. Remi’s contact photo fills the screen, a candid shot of her mid-bite into a slice of pizza, glaring at me around a mouthful of pepperoni after accusing me of stealing one of her fries.
A smile tugs at my mouth as my thumb hovers over the call button. I’ve never been the kind of man who needs conversation after a long shift. Usually, I prefer coming home and shutting out the rest of the world for a while.
Apparently, that’s changing too.
Before I can call her, another name flashes on the screen.
Aunt Priscilla.
Guilt rolls through my gut when I remember I’d promised to call her at least once a week.
It’s been way more than that.
I answer and make my way into the living room.
“Oi, tia,” I say. “Tudo bem?”
“Don’t you give me that.”
I close my eyes and rub the back of my neck. Of course that didn’t work.
“I haven’t wanted to bother you, so I gave you time. But nearly two months, Thiago.”
“I know, I know.” I sigh. “I’m sorry. Work has been...work. I’m still getting used to the new atmosphere, the guys. But I should’ve called.”
“You always disappear into yourself when things get heavy,” she says, her voice gentler now. “Just because you’re grown doesn’t mean you stop having people who worry about you.”
The guilt digs in deeper because she’s right.
I would’ve been lost without her after my father died. She gave me a home and never once made me feel like I was something she’d been forced to take on. Yet whenever life gets complicated, I shut everyone out and convince myself it’s easier that way.
“How are you doing?” she asks, and I can picture the concern on her face even from thousands of miles away.
“I’m okay,” I tell her, undoing my belt and tugging my shirt over my head.
“You sound tired, meu filho. Like you’ve got a lot on your shoulders.”
I sit on the edge of the couch and rub my face, wanting to tell her everything.
To tell her how conflicted I am and how every line I once thought was clear has blurred the deeper I get into this assignment.
But mostly, I want to tell her about Remi and how being around her has me questioning things I stopped questioning a long time ago.
But I can’t.
She can never know what I’m really a part of. To her, I’m still the good man my father would have wanted me to be, the hero I spent most of my life trying to become.
For a long time, I thought I was that man too.
Lately, I’m not so sure.
“It’s part of the job, Tia. No rest for the wicked, huh?”
She laughs, but it sounds forced, as if she hears more in my voice than I meant to let slip.
We move on to easier things after that, where she tells me about her garden, complains about her neighbor’s dog digging holes beneath the fence again, and eventually makes me swear I won’t wait another month to call.
“I mean it, Thiago.”
“I know, Tia.”
“Don’t disappear on me.”
“I won’t.”
The words stay with me after we hang up, probably because we both know I’ve made that promise before.
I head back into the kitchen to grab some water, and my eyes fall on my father’s notebook still sitting where I left it on the counter.
I was too young when he died to remember much of him.
Most of what I know comes from stories my aunt told me, old photographs, and the few things of his I’ve carried with me all these years.
Sometimes I think the hardest part of losing him so young is that I don’t know what it feels like to sit across from my father as a grown man and ask him what the hell I’m supposed to do when life gets complicated.
I never got to tell him about my first day on the job or ask whether he ever questioned it the way I do now.
I never got to tell him about a woman.
My eyes drift back to the notebook. Right now, there’s a lot I wish I could tell him.
I pick it up and flip through pages filled with his handwriting until I reach the first blank one. There’s a pen in the junk drawer. I grab it and stand there for a second, feeling like an idiot because I have no fucking idea what I’m doing.
Then I think about the reports I’ve written more times than I can count. At least I know how to do that. I write the date at the top of the page, followed by two words beneath it.
MISSION REPORT.
The pen stays on the paper while I decide what comes next.
Subject: Remi Isabel Cain.
This should be easy enough, except that the first thing that comes to mind has nothing to do with the mission.
She shared her pizza with me.
I stare at the sentence and laugh under my breath.
“Great fucking intelligence, Braga.”
I should cross it out, but I don’t.
She likes spicy pepperoni, extra cheese, and hot honey. She knows more about cars than most people ever will. She hates silence almost as much as she pretends to hate cops. She talks to herself, and she loves people harder than she wants anyone to know.
I can still see her sitting across from me on that couch, wiping away tears as she told me about Ryuji Kuroda. Then I remember her father’s ring and how she trusted me with something that meant so much to her.
Another line finds its way onto the page.
I think you would’ve liked her, Pai.
My hand goes still.
For a long time, I just stare at what I wrote, wondering whether this is a mission report at all…or maybe I just miss my father.
I close the notebook and leave it on the counter before heading to the bathroom.
By the time I set my phone on the vanity.
The shower is already running, and steam begins to fill the room as I strip off the rest of my clothes.
Every muscle in my body aches for the heat, but just as I’m about to step inside, my cell starts buzzing.
I almost ignore it, too exhausted to think of anything but climbing into my bed. Whatever problem is waiting for me can probably survive another twenty minutes without my attention. But of course I turn back and check the screen anyway.
It’s a message from Ryan.
I unlock my phone, and nearly lose my footing when a fucking mugshot of Remi fills the screen.
“Drop the charges,” I bark into the phone as I tear into the county parking lot. “Make them disappear.”
Elena says nothing on the other end. Of course she doesn’t. She’s probably enjoying every second of knowing that Remi is sitting in a holding cell, facing charges that could follow her for years.
Ryan couldn’t tell me much beyond what was already in the system. Aggravated battery, fleeing and eluding, reckless driving, and enough other bullshit for the department to make an example out of her if they wanted to.
My fist slams against the steering wheel, pain shooting across my knuckles.
“Say something.”
“She ran from the police,” Elena replies, far too calmly. “What exactly did you expect would happen?”
“She’s not a criminal.”
The words come out so easily that it takes me a second to hear how fucking ridiculous they sound.
I know what she’s done and what her family is capable of.
But none of that is what I see when I think about her anymore.
Now she’s sitting alone in a cell, probably furious, wanting to tear the place apart and maybe…
scared, even though she’ll never admit it.
I throw the truck into park.
“Get rid of the charges,” I say through gritted teeth. “Now.”
“You think it’s that simple?”
“You and I both know it is.” Shoving open my door, I climb out. “You want your answers? Your information? Then good luck getting any of it while she’s buried in courtrooms for the next few years.”
Elena goes quiet again, and I know she’s considering it because she knows I’m right.