Chapter 65 – remi
Sixty-Five
remi
“That’s the fourth dress you’ve tried on. When have you ever cared this much, Rem? Plus, you look great in anything, and it’s not like you’re the one trying to make a good impression,” Valentina says with a yawn.
My phone is propped against the mirror on my dresser, Val taking up most of the screen as she watches me move between my closet and the bed, adding another dress to the growing pile.
“That’s not the point.” I hold a black dress with a high slit against me and study my reflection. “I’m nervous as hell, V.”
“Why, baby? It’s just the family. It’ll be fine.”
I toss the dress onto the bed, then reach for my phone. “I know. I just really want them to like him.”
“They will. If everything you’ve told me about Thiago is true, they’ll love him. He’s good to you and cares about you. After everything you told him in Miami, he’s still right there beside you, and that’s huge.”
I fall back onto the mattress, unable to stop smiling. “Yeah. It almost doesn’t feel real.”
“That tattoo on his neck is pretty fucking real.”
I laugh, but my fingers drift absently across my chest.
There’s something terrifyingly beautiful about a man willingly branding himself with the darkest parts of you.
I stare up at the ceiling for a moment, then glance back at Val. “I love him.”
Her face lights up. “Oh, I know.”
“Shut up.” I laugh, grabbing one of the pillows beside me and hugging it to my stomach. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I roll onto my side to face the phone. “I think I’ve known for a while. I just wasn’t ready to say it yet.”
“And now you are?”
I think about Miami, about sitting beside him and handing him truths I’ve spent my entire life protecting. I think about asking him to meet my family because keeping him separate from the rest of my life suddenly felt impossible.
“Yeah.” I don’t have to think about it. “Now I am.”
Val’s smile softens. “Then I’m happy for you. You deserve that crazy, obsessive, I’d-kill-and-die-for-you kind of love.”
I smile because that’s exactly how this feels.
“I used to think I could have fallen in love with Ryuji, that we could have been something special. We were so much alike, and neither of us would’ve had to change or hide where we came from.”
“Maybe you would have loved him,” Val says. “Just differently.”
“Yeah.” I trace a loose thread in the comforter with my fingertip. “Because I’ve never felt anything like this with him. Not even close. I’ve never felt anything like this with anyone.”
The certainty is there, but so is the one question I haven’t been able to shake.
“Val, do you think it’s too soon? How the hell can I already be this sure of someone?”
“There’s no set timeline. You either feel it or you don’t, and you clearly do.” She gives me a knowing look. “So stop asking yourself whether you got there too fast. Take your time with everything else. Enjoy that man and let yourself be happy. You deserve it.”
I know she’s right. I trusted Thiago with truths that could destroy my family if they fell into the wrong hands, his hands, and then asked him to come home to meet the people I love most. I might not have said the words to him yet, but I’ve already given him every part of me that matters.
“Yeah.” I smile into the comforter. “I think I can do that.”
She tries to hide a yawn, but I catch it. Six p.m. here is one a.m. in Moscow. Back when we were tearing up the track at Furia, we watched the sun rise more times than I can count. Now Val is a domesticated wife who can barely keep her eyes open past midnight.
I laugh at the thought, and her brow furrows.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I grin. “Get to bed. I’ll update you tomorrow.”
“You better.” She yawns again. “Have fun, baby. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
My phone vibrates before I can set it down, and the name on the screen instantly warms my cheeks.
Thiago: Hey, beautiful. I’ll be there in about an hour.
My stomach flutters as I type a reply.
Me: I can’t wait for tonight. Thank you for doing this.
The typing bubbles appear, disappear, and then appear again.
I frown at the screen. He usually doesn’t take this long to figure out what he wants to say.
Thiago: I’m looking forward to it.
I stare at his reply for another second until the time at the top of the screen catches my eye.
“An hour? Shit!”
I spring into action and grab the black dress with the high slit from the pile. By the time I finish my makeup and curl my hair, I still have thirty minutes to spare.
On my way down the hall, I stop to visit Hannibal and Clarice. My boy is coiled beneath his heat lamp, fast asleep, while Clarice rests in the corner of her enclosure, her patterned body pressed against the glass.
“Hey, girl. You’re wired too, huh?” I rest my elbows on her enclosure.
“Must be because tonight’s the night. Maybe you don’t know this, but this whole meeting-the-parents thing is a big deal, especially in our family.
Not just anyone impresses them or earns their trust, but I think Thiago has a pretty good shot. What do you think?”
Clarice stares back at me, completely unimpressed.
“Okay, maybe he threatened to shoot you, but to be fair, there was the whole escaped-venomous-snake situation. You get it. Nothing personal.”
I laugh just as my phone alerts me that someone is requesting access to the building.
“He’s early.” I grant access, then look back at Clarice. “Don’t wait up.”
I cut across the living room, and a minute later, the doorbell rings. Pulling up the camera just to fuck with him a little, the smile drops from my face the second I see who’s on the other side.
Thiago’s boss.
“What the hell is she doing here? How does she even know where I live?”
The doorbell rings again, and I ignore it. Whatever she wants, she can take it elsewhere. Her showing up at my apartment makes no sense, and after what happened at Sloane’s, every instinct I have is telling me not to trust this.
I turn away from the door, but another possibility stops me.
What if something happened to Thiago? I grab my phone and open our messages.
Me: Baby, are you okay?
I wait, watching the screen for the typing bubbles that never appear.
“Fuck.”
I call him instead, but it rings until his voicemail picks up. That’s enough to send me back toward the door.
I yank it open. “Where’s Thiago?”
Her expression is cool and unreadable as she steps closer, but I stay planted in the doorway, blocking her from coming inside.
“I have something for you, Remi Cain.”
“What are you talking about?” I grip the doorframe. “Where’s Thiago?”
She ignores the question and holds out a white envelope.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Open it.”
“I don’t have the time or patience for your cryptic bullshit. Tell me what you’re doing here and whether Thiago is okay.”
A smug smile curves her lips. “You’re asking the wrong questions, dear.” She extends the envelope a little farther. “Maybe you should be asking yourself who Thiago Braga really is.”
“What does that mean?”
“All the answers you’re looking for are right here.”
I glance down at the envelope.
“Go on.” She tilts her head. “I think you’ll find it...enlightening.”
I know better than to trust a damn thing this woman says, but against my better judgment, I take it. Then I step back and slam the door in her face without another word.
Wondering why the fuck I answered the door in the first place, I stare at the envelope in my hands.
My heart is pounding so hard I can barely swallow.
I shouldn’t open it. Whatever is inside came from a woman I already know I can’t trust. But if she’s lying, what the hell is she lying about?
What could she possibly reveal about Thiago?
Her last word keeps running through my head.
Enlightening.
I set my phone on the table and break the seal with trembling fingers.
A stack of documents slides into my hand.
The first page is a demographic profile.
My driver’s license photo stares back at me from the upper-right corner, while every detail of my life is laid out beneath it in clean, clinical print.
My full name, date of birth, home address, vehicles, known associates, and family members are all listed.
Even Hannibal and Clarice have their own entries. A chill crawls down my spine as I turn the page.
TARGET PROFILE
CAIN, Remi Isabel
Threat Assessment: ORANGE
Operational Objective: Reconnaissance | Intelligence Collection | Retrieval | Sanitize
Assigned Operative: 427
Operative: Thiago Braga
Cover Identity: Philadelphia SWAT Officer, Precinct 9
Mission Status: ACTIVE
My eyes stop on his name.
Thiago Braga.
I read it again, then force myself to keep going, but the words beneath it barely register as my vision blurs when I turn the page.
OPERATIONAL DIRECTIVES
· Establish contact with target and develop rapport.
· Gain target’s trust through continued personal contact.
· Obtain access to target’s residence, vehicles, businesses, and daily routines.
· Identify current members and associates of the Cain organization.
· Determine whether members of The Six remain operationally active.
· Determine the location and current possession of the Ledger.
· Identify safe houses, financial assets, security measures, and other resources available to the Cain family.
· Maintain cover identity and preserve target trust at all times.
· Await further authorization regarding retrieval and sanitize protocols.
My stomach turns as I reach the next section.
FIELD INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY
Target Habits and Behavioral Observations
· Target co-owns Sloane’s shooting range with cousin Valentina Cain.
· Target maintains an extensive private vehicle collection and performs her own mechanical work.
· Target frequently retreats to a private rooftop terrace when overwhelmed or seeking isolation.
· Target uses third-person self-talk while concentrating or under stress.
· Target keeps two snakes, Hannibal and Clarice, inside primary residence.
· Target displays strong protective instincts toward immediate and extended family.
I stop.
“No…no…”
My hands begin to shake as I keep reading.
ACCESS AND RELATIONSHIP ASSESSMENT
· Operative has obtained unrestricted access to target’s primary residence.
· Target voluntarily introduced operative to private rooftop terrace previously restricted from outside access.
· Operative has been introduced to multiple members of target’s immediate and extended family.
· Target has disclosed personal history and demonstrated increasing emotional dependence on operative.
· Target has granted operative continued access to personal routines, businesses, and vehicles.
· Target’s emotional attachment to operative continues to increase.
· Target currently demonstrates a high level of trust in operative.
I brace one hand against the table because I suddenly don’t trust my legs to hold me.
“It can’t be true.” My voice breaks.
I read the page again, desperate to find something that doesn’t fit, something he couldn’t possibly know that would prove Elena put this together from a distance and that Thiago had nothing to do with it. But every line brings back another memory.
My terrace. My home. My family. The nights when I let him see inside my head. My fingers tighten around the paper until it crumples beneath them. I blink as a tear hits the page, only then realizing I’m crying.
Thiago wasn’t learning me because he loved me.
He was studying me.
The thought makes my chest cave in. I press my palm against my sternum and draw a breath, but it catches halfway down. Another tear falls, then another, and the words in front of me swim until I have to wipe my eyes just to keep reading..
As I turn another page, my breaths come faster, each shallower than the last. Then my eyes catch two lines near the bottom, and I stop breathing altogether.
Current Operational Development: Target has invited operative to private family dinner. Attendance will provide direct access to senior Cain family members and an opportunity to assess current organizational activity.
Mission Status: ACTIVE
My heart gives a painful thud as the meaning sinks in. No one. No one outside my family knows about tonight except Thiago.
“No.”
I shake my head as more tears spill down my cheeks. There has to be another explanation. There has to be a way Elena found out without him telling her, because the alternative means he walked away from everything I trusted him with last night and reported back to the woman who sent him after me.
But I can’t find one.
The denial I’ve been clinging to finally shatters, and the pain that rushes in behind it nearly doubles me over.
He told her.
He had to have told her.
A sob catches in my throat as I swipe at the stack, sending papers scattering across the floor. I stumble back from the table and wrap my arms around myself, as if I could somehow hold together everything inside me that’s coming apart.
“No.” I can barely force the word past my lips. “Please...it can’t be true.”
I back away from them, but there’s nowhere to look that doesn’t remind me of something I gave him. My apartment surrounds me. The home he was ordered to gain access to. Somewhere above me is the terrace he was ordered to find. Downstairs are the cars he was supposed to document.
I press a hand over my mouth as another sob forces its way up my throat.
“No, Thiago. You didn’t do this to me.”
My phone vibrates against the table.
Thiago Calling...
I stare at his name.
An hour ago, I would’ve answered before the first ring even finished. I was standing in this same room, telling Val I loved him, wondering how I could possibly be so sure after only a few weeks. Now I know exactly how.
He made sure I would be.
The call ends, only to start again seconds later, but I can’t bring myself to touch the phone.
Everything I thought was ours suddenly has another explanation. The questions he asked. The places he wanted to see. The way he paid attention to every little thing I did. Even the parts of me I thought he noticed because he cared.
I trusted him with all of it.
And he was sent here to make sure I did.