The world drops out from under me. My knees nearly buckle; I grip the back of the couch to stay upright. "Why the fuck would he do that?"
"He wanted what was best for you." Ernie's tone dips paternal, like he's consoling the eight-year-old me after a scraped knee or a playground fight. "Took the heat for the hit on your girl's boss. Confessed everything clean — motive, method, timeline. Cops bought it wholesale. No loose ends, no questions about you or Harvee. He made sure of it."
"Why is his phone off?" My voice shakes, fists clenching until my nails bite palms.
"He smashed it to pieces. No evidence, no traces back to you. Smart kid. Don't worry about that part."
Tears burn hot tracks down my face before I can blink them back, spilling over as my chest caves. I sink onto the couch edge, phone trembling against my ear like it's the only thing keeping me from shattering. "Fuck, Uncle. I'm so sorry. I didn't know he would?—"
"Diego." His voice firms up, cutting clean through my spiral like a knife. "He wanted to take care of you like you guys have cared for him. Always has. You've got so much going for you now — he told me about you finally finding a girl, and your Ma needing you more than ever, a real shot at something better than this life. Take care of your mother, okay? Bail her out of that motel job. Get her the care she deserves. That's what Raul would want."
"Okay." The word chokes out past the sob lodged in my throat, barely audible over the roar in my ears and the pounding of my own heart. "I love you."
"We both love you, Mijo. Always." Uncle Ernie's voice softens at the edges, a rare crack in his gravelly armor that hits me harder than any punch. "I'll see you tonight? Valeria wants me to pick you up and bring dinner. She said hospital food is too bland," he chuckles low and warm, the sound painting a picture of Ma scowling at her Jell-O tray, mutteringesta mierda sabe a cartón.
"Yeah, I'll swing by in a few." My voice is wrecked, but I force the words out.
"Okay, Mijo." The line clicks dead with finality, leaving only the relentless drip-drip-drip in the corner and my own ragged breaths sawing through the stale air like a blade.
I drop the phone into my lap, head falling heavy into shaking hands as the sobs rip through me. Raw, ugly, heaving convulsions that shake my frame and hollow me out until there's nothing left but grief-sharp edges. Raul. My brother in blood and sin. The kid who took the fall for so many of my mistakes, grinning through the lies like it was nothing. Shared his last stolen cigarette behind the high school bleachers at fifteen, coughing on the burn but passing it anyway. Split his dirty hit money last night without blinking, eyes wet but jaw set. Threw himself on the sword, confessed to murder, smashed his phone, walked into a cage… Just so I could breathe free air again without fear. For Ma's upcoming dialysis bills. For Harvee's safety, her name scrubbed from the suspect list. For us.
The storage unit blurs through hot, stinging tears, concrete walls pressing closer like a tomb sealing shut. The coiled chains glint dully in the corner, mocking me. He's gone from the streets we ruled together. Locked in a cage of his own making, probablyalready staring down fluorescent lights and metal bars, thinking it was worth it.
He's in a cage he built himself. For us.
The sobs hit before I've set the phone down. Ugly and heaving, the kind that hollow you out entirely. Raul. My brother in blood and sin and everything in between. The kid who lied about my mother's necklace without blinking. Who split his cut of dirty money and then turned around and handed his freedom over like it cost him nothing.
He's in a cage he built himself. For us.
Harvee slides behind me without a word. Her arms come around my shoulders, her chin settling against my back, her fingers threading through mine where my hands hang useless between my knees. She doesn't try to fix it. Doesn't offer anything except the steady warmth of her, breath syncing with mine until the heaving slows to shuddering and the shuddering slows to silence.
We're free.
At what cost.
We dress in silence and load into the truck as the city is waking up. Strip malls still shuttered. Palm fronds moving in the early breeze. Harvee presses her forehead to the window glass and reabsorbs the world outside like someone testing whether it's still real.
"You okay?" I ask.
"Just spinning." She twists the hem of her shirt. "My boss. Work. My family. Raul. Your mom. Us." Her voice wavers on the last word and holds. "It's a lot."
"Yeah." I swallow. "I'm sorry. For all of it. For my part in it."
She turns from the window to look at me. Doesn't say anything. Doesn't have to.
Small talk fills the cracks after that. Fragile, surface-level stuff that stitches the silence back together mile by mile. She wants Freddy's coffee, the Feeling Freddy specifically, and I tell her about the Cuban place near Ma's hospital that's been there since before I was born. It's nothing. It's everything. It works.
Several minutes later, we round the corner to her apartment complex. A sagging stucco relic with rusted chain-link fencing half-choked, a faded NO PARKING signs peeling in the salt air. She fumbles her keys at the door, hands shaky, and we step into her world: the faint ghost of vanilla candle clinging to the air amid unopened mail and that mug I almost broke by breaking in that first night. It’s her- cozy, chaotic, beautiful.
Her apartment is exactly as she left it — unopened mail, the faint ghost of vanilla candle, the lemon-shaped mug still on the counter from the night I came in through the window. She beelines for the bathroom without a word. The shower hisses on. Steam curls under the door.
I lean against the counter and listen to the water and try not to think about what comes next. She's washing it off — the concrete, the chains, the storage unit, all of it. She should. She deserves to.
The fear that moves in is quiet and particular. She'll step out clean and recalibrated and look at the full picture — the man who chained her to a couch, who confessed to murder while his hands were in her hair, who dragged her into something she never asked to be part of — and she'll make the rational choice. She should make the rational choice.
Raul's note burns in my pocket.Happy future.
The water cuts off.