Antonio also made sure the main gate routed directly through the interior monitor system so I could see and control access myself.
Which is why I’m standing here now, staring at the black SUV waiting beyond the wrought iron like I’m about to make some grand symbolic choice when really the decision was made for me already.
I open the security app on my phone, tap into the live feed, and switch the angle manually to the tighter camera mounted near the gate buzzer.
The image changes at once.
Now the shot is closer, clearer. Centered on the driver’s side window and the section of the SUV just beyond it.
So this is Adrian Donato.
Teresa’s cousin from Texas.
The one everyone else has already discussed. Already approved.
The one now sitting at my gate, waiting for me to let him in, as if this were normal.
A fresh wave of resentment rolls through me, meaner now that the moment is actually here.
I fold my arms over my chest and stare at the monitor.
He is wearing sunglasses against the sharp morning light, dark lenses that hide most of his eyes from the camera. Annoying. But I can still make out enough to form an impression.
The sharp line of his jaw. The firm set of his mouth. Dark hair, neat. Suit jacket crisp even from here. Broad shoulders filling out the driver’s seat in a way that makes the SUV look smaller than it is.
He is exactly what I expected, which somehow makes me more irritated instead of less.
Of course he looks like this.
Composed. Serious.
All security guys are like that. Like they were all issued the same face, along with the earpieces, and the black suits, and the permanent expression that suggests smiling might compromise national security. Always so grim. So disciplined.
So certain that everyone else was one bad decision away from disaster if they were not there to supervise it.
I watch him a second longer.
He is not on the phone. Not checking his watch. Not looking around impatiently. He just sits there with one hand low on the wheel, waiting.
That restraint registers.
Most men in this situation would have found some way to project impatience. A shift in posture. A tap of the fingers. Some visible sign that they thought they were important enough not to be left at a gate like an ordinary guest.
This one doesn’t.
He waits like he knows how to.
That irritates me too.
Because competence is harder to dismiss than swagger.
I zoom in just a little more, squinting at the screen. The sunglasses still keep too much hidden, but there is something severe about the mouth, something uncompromising in the way he holds himself even when he is doing absolutely nothing.
Not stiff. Not performative. Just contained.
Like a man who is used to sitting still, but once he starts moving, he’s capable of dangerous things.
I don’t like that thought.
