Chapter 123 -
Leo moved fast after that.
He had Salazar's signal tracked within four minutes. Two DeSanto cars intercepted him before he reached the estate gate, clean and quick, over before he could reach anyone outside.
Nia stood in the hallway and watched them bring him in. He was a short man with frightened eyes, his phone already bagged and passed to Micheal before his feet fully cleared the doorway.
"Message never sent," Micheal said, scrolling through the device. "Signal dropped when they grabbed him."
Leo's expression didn't shift. "Put him with Victor."
The two men hauled Salazar down the hall. He looked at Leo once with those frightened eyes, and then he was gone around the corner.
Christian watched them leave. "Two confirmed traitors. Victor said there was a third."
"Probably," Leo said. "But we know where Isadora is. And Salazar didn't reach Santiago. That's what tonight gives us."
"Tonight," Christian said. The word landed heavy.
Leo looked at Nia. She looked back at him. Something passed between them that she couldn't name exactly, something that felt like the last quiet moment before everything came crashing in.
"Get some rest," Leo said to the room. "We brief at six."
The room began to empty. Christian lingered by the door, wearing the expression he put on when he wanted to say something and was still deciding if he should.
"Just say it," Leo told him.
Christian's mouth curved very slightly. "She's going to be fine."
Leo said nothing. Christian left.
Nia followed Leo down the hall toward his room. Neither of them spoke until the door was closed and the noise of the house settled to a low hum behind them.
She crossed to the window briefly, looking out at the same view he had been watching. The grounds were quiet. The guards were steady. Everything looked normal from the outside.
"Six hours," she said.
"Yes," he said.
She sat on the edge of the bed. He stayed standing near the window, looking out at the dark grounds below. The patrol lights swept a slow arc across the lawn, and she watched him watch them, the way his eyes tracked the movement automatically, always calculating, even now.
"Tell me something that has nothing to do with tomorrow," she said.
He turned. He looked at her for a moment, like he was deciding what to give. Then he came and sat beside her, not close enough to touch but close enough that she felt the warmth of him.
"My mother made arroz con leche every Sunday night," he said. "It was always too much. Enough to feed half the street if she wanted to."
Nia smiled in spite of herself. "Did she know she was making too much?"
"She knew." The corner of his mouth moved. "She liked feeding people. She said a full house was a safe house."
"She sounds good."
"She was," he said quietly. The words sat there between them, not sad exactly, but weighted.
Nia looked at her hands in her lap. "My mother used to sing while she cooked. Always the same three songs, off-key every single time. She'd start cooking and the singing would just start, like it was automatic. It didn't matter what kind of day it had been."
"What happened to her?" he asked.
"She died when I was eleven," Nia said. "Car accident. My father was already gone before that." She paused. "Isadora's family absorbed me after. Her mother always made me a plate when they cooked, whether I was there or not. Just in case."
"A full house," Leo said.
"Yeah," she said softly. "Something like that."
He was quiet for a moment. Then, "She raised someone worth showing up for."
Nia looked at him. He wasn't looking at her, his profile steady and tired in the low light, and somehow that made it mean more. She didn't know what to do with Leonardo DeSanto when he spoke like that.
"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me," she told him.
"Don't get used to it," he said. But there was no edge in it.
She laughed once. Small and real and unexpected.
She lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He stayed sitting a moment, then lay down beside her. Not close. Just present.
"Leo," she said after a while.
"Hmm."
"If something goes wrong tomorrow, I need you to know that none of this started because of you. I got pulled into your world by someone else's choices. But I don't regret it."
He was quiet for a long time. Long enough that she thought he might not answer.
"I regret it," he said finally.
She turned to look at him.
"I regret every single thing that happened to you from the moment I put you in that car." He held her gaze. "But I don't regret you."
She turned back to the ceiling. Her throat felt tight.
"Get some sleep," he said.
"I'm trying," she said.
He took her hand in the dark, caressing it without any pressure or demand.
She didn't sleep properly. But she stayed there, held, and it was enough to carry her through to morning.
At 5:30 am, Rosa knocked and came in with tea and two plates. She set them down without a word, looked at them both with the look that said everything she wasn't going to say out loud, and left just as quietly.
By 6 am, the house was awake and moving. By six fifteen the meeting room was full. Maps back on the table. Drone feeds live on the screens. The three techs were already pulling the overnight surveillance data from Solari Street, one of them talking quietly into a headset while the others scrolled through thermal readings.
Leo stood at the head of the table.
"Eleven bodies were confirmed inside overnight. No movement in or out between midnight and five AM. Isadora is in that building." He paused. "And we are going to bring her home."
Micheal turned the phone around slowly. An unknown message sprang forth.
Don't trust Leo.
Ask him what really happened to Andrea.
The message sat there on the screen like a dropped match in a room full of gasoline.
Christian's eyes lifted to Leo. Nia didn't look away from him. Santiago liked games. Everyone in this room knew that. If he could not stop them with guns yet, he would try with doubt.
Leo's jaw tightened, but he didn't look shaken, just tired of the tactic.
"He wants us fighting each other instead of focusing on him," Leo said evenly.
Christian nodded once. "Classic Santiago."
Micheal turned the phone face down on the table. "He's trying to fracture the room before we move."
Nia watched Leo for another second, then looked back to the map.
"It won't work," she said quietly.
Christian exhaled through his nose.
"Good. Because we don't have time for psychological warfare today."
"No," Micheal said. "Today we move."
Leo's gaze swept the room, pulling everyone's attention back to the table.
"Then let's talk about how we get Nia inside that warehouse," he said.