Jasper's eyes slid to Lorenzo, waiting.
"It's complicated," Lorenzo said.
Jasper snorted.
"Inside," Diego said again, stepping back from the doorway. "Before someone calls the cops or worse."
I didn't move. Every instinct screamed to walk away, disappear into Rio's maze of streets and never look back. I could survive on my own. I had training for this. I didn't need Lorenzo or his friends, or whatever mess I'd just jumped into.
Except the Church wanted me dead. The Pantheon wanted Lorenzo dead. And standing in an alley arguing was a good way to make both of those things happen faster.
You don't have a choice. You never had a choice.
"Fine." The word tasted bitter.
I pushed past Diego into the warehouse. It wasn’t anything special, just a space with a concrete floor and exposed pipes.
Lorenzo followed me inside. I tracked his movement without meaning to, hyperaware of his presence. I moved away, putting a table between us. The distance didn't help. My skin still remembered the solid warmth of his back against my chest.
"Water?" Diego gestured toward a camping stove in the corner. "Coffee?"
"Shower," I said through clenched teeth. "I need to wash this off."
I didn't specify whatthiswas. The blood. The smell of Sanctum. The memory of my father slumping in that booth. The feel of Lorenzo's warmth still burning into my palms.
Diego studied me. "Bathroom's through there. Best we could do on short notice."
"Fine."
I headed toward the bathroom without waiting for a response. My shoulder screamed with each step, but I ignored it, focused on forward motion, on getting away from Lorenzo's orbit before my body did something else I'd regret.
The bathroom reminded me of the gym showers in high school. It was communal and open, but I didn't care.
I stripped out of my suit jacket. The fabric was stiff where blood had dried and the shirt underneath wasn't much better. Every pieceof clothing I removed was peeling away evidence of the worst night of my life.
The water ran cold, but I didn't wait for it to warm. I stepped under the spray and let it hit me like punishment, like penance for every choice that had led here.
I grabbed the industrial soap from the ledge and scrubbed at my hands. My father's blood had worked its way under my fingernails and into the creases of my palms. The soap stung where my knuckles had split during the fight, sharp enough to make my eyes water.
Maybe that wasn't the soap.
Don't you dare.
I scrubbed harder. My shoulder throbbed with each movement, but I needed to get clean.
The door opened behind me.
I spun and found Lorenzo standing in the doorway, stripped down to his underwear. Blood still marked his skin in patches he'd missed. His side was bandaged, white gauze already seeping red where the wound I'd given him in Rome had torn open again.
"Get out."
"I need to shower too." He swayed on his feet.
"I don't care what you need." I turned my back on him, facing the spray. "Wait your turn."
"Rafael—"
"I said get out!" The words echoed off the tile, bouncing back at me from every direction. "I don't want you here. I don't want to see you. I don't want—"
