Chapter 131 -
Rosa was standing on the front steps when the convoy pulled through the gates.
She had her arms crossed and that look on her face, the one that meant she had been up all night and had opinions about every decision made while she was not in the room. Leo stepped out of the lead vehicle and she assessed him head to foot.
"The wound."
"It held."
"Let me see it."
"After Isadora is settled."
Twenty-two years of this standoff, and neither of them had ever won it cleanly.
Rosa moved past him to the second car, where Micheal was helping Isadora down from the back seat. She was still wrapped in the silver blanket, and up close in the estate lights Nia could see everything the warehouse had done to her friend, the bruise along her jaw, the marks at her wrists, the particular exhaustion that came not from sleep deprivation but from being afraid for too long.
Rosa took one look at her and put both hands on Isadora's face, the way she handled anything that had been damaged and needed checking.
"Come inside," Rosa said. "Soup first, then sleep."
"Soup," Isadora repeated. Her voice was rough. "Nia told me about the soup."
"Then you already know there is nothing to argue about."
Something loosened in Isadora's face. She went with Rosa up the steps.
Inside, the kitchen was warm and smelled of the arroz con leche Rosa had made sometime in the night to keep herself occupied. Isadora sat at the central table and before she had fully settled Rosa had a bowl in front of her and a glass of water beside it.
Micheal pulled a stool from the corner and sat across from Isadora. He poured himself water, drank all of it, filled the glass again.
"Micheal DeSanto. In case the formal introduction got lost in all the shooting."
Isadora looked at him over the spoon. "I know who you are."
"Good reputation, I hope."
"Nia said you talk a lot."
"Characterization, not reputation. Completely different." He rested his elbows on the table. "How's the jaw?"
"Still attached."
"High bar. Glad it cleared."
Isadora looked at him flatly for a moment. Then she went back to the soup. Micheal watched her eat with the kind of attention that wasn't intrusive, just present.
"Thank you," Isadora said without looking up.
"For what?"
"For coming into the building."
Micheal was quiet for a beat.
"That was mostly Leo. And Nia, if we're accounting properly. She pressed the panic button."
"I know." Isadora set the spoon down. "But you all came."
The house made its late-night sounds. A door somewhere above, the distant bark of one of the estate dogs, then small feet on the stairs.
Gabriel came into the kitchen doorway in his striped pajamas with his hair loose and his eyes wider than they should have been for four in the morning. He looked at the room. He found Nia first, confirmed she was present, then moved his attention to Isadora with the unhurried thoroughness of a five-year-old conducting a proper inspection.
"You have a bruise," he said.
"I do," Isadora said.
"On your face."
"Yes."
"Does it hurt when you eat?"
"A little bit."
He crossed to the chair beside her, his chair, the one closest to the window, and climbed into it. He looked at her bowl. "Rosa's soup helps," he said, in the tone of someone reporting tested and verified information. "When I fell off my bicycle my knee hurt very much. Uncle Nardo put on the plaster and Rosa made the soup and both things helped."
Isadora looked at this child in his pajamas, his total seriousness, the way he had arrived and seated himself beside a stranger as if it were the obvious thing to do. Something changed in her face.
"What's your name?" she said.
"Gabriel Romano DeSanto." He considered for a moment. "You can say Gaby. Nia says Gaby.
"
"Gaby." She held out her hand, very formally. "I'm Isadora. But you can call me Isa."
He shook her hand with two pumps.
"Did someone hurt you on purpose?" he asked.
The kitchen went still. Even Micheal didn't fill the silence. Isadora held Gabriel's gaze.
"Yes," she said. "But I'm safe now."
"Because Uncle Nardo got you out."
"Because Nia came first," she said. "And then Uncle Nardo."
Gabriel thought about this with visible care. "Uncle Nardo says brave people don't wait," he said finally. "They act and then they let Rosa make the soup." He glanced at the bowl. "You should eat more. You haven't finished."
Micheal pressed his fist against his mouth. Nia looked at the ceiling.
Isadora picked up the spoon. "You're right," she said. "I haven't."
Gabriel settled back in his chair, satisfied. He folded his hands on the table the way he'd seen the adults do in serious meetings and watched Isadora eat.
Christian appeared in the doorway. He took in the scene, Gabriel at the table, the stranger eating soup, Micheal trying not to laugh.
"Go to bed, Gaby." he said to Gabriel.
"I was checking on the guest."
"You've checked."
"She wasn't finished eating."
"She's finished enough. Come at once." He nodded at the doorway.
Gabriel looked at Isadora. "Feel better?" he said formally. He climbed down and went to Christian, who put one hand briefly on the top of his head before steering him toward the stairs.
At the doorway, Christian stopped. He looked at Isadora directly.
"I'm glad you're out," he said.
He went upstairs with Gabriel. The kitchen settled again.
Rosa stood at the counter with a fresh cloth, wringing it. "Twenty minutes," she said to Isadora. "Then I take you to a proper bed and you sleep until noon if your body needs it."
"I have questions," Isadora said.
"Tomorrow."
"About Leo."
Rosa's expression did not change. "Tomorrow, please."
Isadora looked at Nia. Nia gave her nothing. Isadora picked up the glass of water and drank it slowly.
"He's not what I expected," she said.
"Nobody ever says that and then finishes the sentence well," Micheal said.
"I wasn't finished." Isadora set the glass down. "He's not what I expected. But Nia looks at him the way she looked at her mother's photograph, like something she did not expect to still have."
The kitchen was quiet. Rosa folded the cloth and put it on the counter with the precise movements of a woman who had just heard something she was going to need to think about later.
Micheal looked at Nia while Nia looked at the table.
"Tomorrow," Rosa said again, more gently this time. "Come."
She led Isadora out of the kitchen, and Nia sat alone for a moment in the warm bright room before Leo appeared in the doorway, watching her.
"You should sleep," he said.
"You should let Rosa look at your side," she said.
He came and sat down across from her at the table. The clock on the wall read 4:20am. Outside, the first birds were starting.