I turn away from the bed and look out through the narrow gap in the curtain, down toward the street where one of Christian’s men stands at the entrance like a sentry and another car idles half a block over, dark and unobtrusive and obvious only if you know what you’re looking for.
It still doesn’t feel like enough.
My phone vibrates in my hand.
Christian.
I answer immediately, keeping my voice low so it doesn’t carry back across the room.
“Talk.”
His tone is clipped in the way it gets when he’s tired and hiding it. “Still nothing. No obvious movement, no retaliation, no direct contact from Vargas.”
That should reassure me. It doesn’t.
“They’re not done,” I say.
“No,” he replies. “They’re not. But they’re not stupid either, and what happened with Luis changed things.”
Changed things. It’s a careful way of saying what we both know. Luis wasn’t just a body. He was a signal. An escalation. A message that went far beyond the walls of that warehouse, and now everybody with any sense is watching to see whether this turns into open war or gets handled the way families like ours prefer to handle it, quietly, thoroughly, and without inviting the wrong kind of attention.
“They’re keeping a tight ship,” Christian continues. “No one’s talking. No one’s moving in a way we can catch cleanly. Either they’re waiting us out, or they’re trying to figure out whether you’re going to make the first public move.”
I glance back toward the bed.
Toward Lia.
Toward the small rise and fall of her chest beneath the blanket.
“I don’t care what they’re waiting for.”
“I know you don’t.”
There’s a pause, and when he speaks again his voice loses some of its edge.
“You need to stay where you are tonight.”
My jaw tightens. “Don’t tell me what I need.”
“I’m telling you what’s useful,” he says evenly. “You’re no use to her if you go charging at shadows because you can’t bear being still.”
The words hit clean because they’re true.
I hate that they’re true.
My gaze settles on her again, and this time I don’t look away quickly enough. I see the way her face is softer in sleep, the way the shadows under her eyes are still there despite everything, the way she looks younger when she’s not bracing herself against pain, and something in my chest twists so sharply I have to dig my fingers harder into the phone just to keep my voice even.
“She’s home and it still doesn’t feel safe.”
“That’s because it isn’t safe yet,” Christian says. “Not fully. Which is exactly why you stay focused. Let me work the problem. You stay on her.”
I let the silence sit for a second.
“And if they move?”
“I’ll know,” he says. “And so will you.”
I close my eyes briefly, the weight of that not even slightly comforting.
