Chapter 38: The First Night Home
The drive home was silent, a pressurized capsule moving through the neon veins of the city. Pedro’s hand never left Cynna’s thigh, his grip tight, as if she might evaporate. She stared out the window, watching the blur of streetlights, her palm resting on the twin humps of her stomach beneath her coat.
When the private elevator opened directly into their penthouse, he didn’t let her step out first. He scooped her up, one arm under her knees, the other cradling her back. She let out a surprised yelp, then a tired chuckle, her arms looping around his neck.
“Really? The threshold thing? Now?”
“Especially now,” he said, his voice gravelly. He carried her across the pristine floor, kicking the elevator door shut behind them. The penthouse was dark, lit only by the sprawling grid of the city below, a electric tapestry of amber and white.
He didn’t take her to the bedroom. He walked to the vast, floor-to-ceiling window that formed the entire west wall. It was new, installed three weeks prior—two inches of laminated, ballistic-grade glass. He set her down gently, her back against the cool, impervious surface.
The city sprawled beneath them, a universe of distant lives. Up here, they were in a silent aquarium.
“Pedro?” she whispered.
He framed her face with his hands, his thumbs tracing the arch of her cheekbones. His breathing was uneven. He was looking at her, but also through her, at some internal screen replaying the last three hours, the last three months, the last three years.
“She said ‘congratulations,’” he murmured, the words barely audible. “In that fucking room. With all those people. Like she was at a fucking baby shower.”
“I know.”
“It made me want to put my fist through the glass,” he said, a tremor in his voice. He leaned his forehead against hers, closing his eyes. “Not then. Now. Right now.”
“This glass would break your hand,” she said softly, her own hands coming up to cover his, holding them against her skin.
“I don’t care.” His eyes opened, dark and desperate. “Cynna. I need you to know something. Before… before anything else happens. Before we pick names or buy cribs or do anything normal.”
A cold knot formed in her stomach, different from the nervous flutter of the babies. This was old fear, metallic and familiar. “Okay.”
He took a deep, ragged breath. “When she first came back into my life, after Chile… it was easy. It was familiar. We had history. You and I were… we were complicated. You needed space. I needed… noise.” He shook his head, struggling. “I never slept with her. I need you to know that, as a fact. Not once. But I… I let her in. I confided in her. About us. About you. About how hard it was sometimes to read you, to know if you were pulling away because of me or because the world was just too loud that day.”
Cynna stayed perfectly still, her analytical mind switched into high gear, cataloging his words, his micro-expressions, the pulse jumping in his throat.
“I gave her the blueprint,” he said, the confession ripping out of him. “I handed her the goddamn owner’s manual to you, to us, and I didn’t see it. I was so caught up in having this friend who got it, who got me, that I didn’t see she was using it to reverse-engineered a weapon.” A single tear tracked through the stubble on his cheek. “I am so fucking sorry.”
The hum of the climate control was the only sound. Cynna processed. She didn’t pull away. Her fingers tightened on his.
“What did you tell her?” Her voice was clinical, detached.
“Everything.” The word was a death sentence. “How you organize your spices. Which lights you need off to sleep. Your thing with textures. The name of your first therapist. The way you shut down when you’re overwhelmed. The plot of the screenplay you were stuck on. The wine you liked. Your fears about getting older, about being too rigid… Christ, Cynna, I don’t even remember it all. It was just conversation. It was just… sharing.”
He finally broke, his shoulders slumping. He pressed his face into the curve of her neck, his body trembling against hers. “I built the bomb she tried to detonate inside our life. With my own words.”
Cynna looked over his shoulder at the city. The patterns of light, the grid, the chaos organized into lines. Her mind, which always sought order, faced a chaotic, horrible equation. His betrayal was not of the body, but of the mind. He had given a spy the keys to her innermost castle.
And yet.
And yet, he was here. Shaking. Telling her. After watching that woman be sentenced to die in prison, his first instinct was not relief. It was to confess his own part in the crime.
She let out a long, slow breath. “You didn’t know.”
“I should have.” His voice was muffled against her skin.
“Probably. But you didn’t.” She pulled back, forcing him to look at her. His eyes were red-rimmed, shattered. “Pedro, listen to me. Maya is a genius. A pathological, predatory genius. She was your friend for twenty years. Of course you talked to her. Of course you trusted her. That’s what she does. She makes trust feel like home.”
“I feel sick,” he admitted.
“I know. So do I.” She traced the line of his jaw. “But you’re telling me. Now. When you could have buried it. When you could have let it rot. You’re giving it to me.”
“What are you going to do with it?” he asked, the fear raw in his eyes.
“I’m going to hold it,” she said simply. “And then I’m going to put it away in a box marked ‘Maya’s Lies,’ and I’m going to lock it. Because I can’t… I can’t spend the next fifty years auditing every memory, every conversation you ever had. I’d go mad. We’d go mad.” She pressed her lips together. “But you don’t get to do that again. Ever. Your friendships, from now on, are transparent. You don’t get to have private confidantes. Not about us. That’s the price.”
He nodded fiercely, a man grasping a lifeline. “Yes. Anything.”
“And you start therapy. Next week. For the ADHD, for the guilt, for all of it. Not couples therapy. You. Alone.”
“Already booked the consultation,” he said, a weak, watery smile touching his lips. “Yesterday.”
A beat of silence passed between them, filled with the weight of the unsaid now being said.
Then, with a suddenness that stole her breath, he kissed her. It wasn’t like the kiss in the courthouse restroom, all frantic possession. This was different. Deep, searching, a silent question. An apology written in the slide of his tongue against hers, a promise in the way his hands slid from her face to her shoulders, down her sides to her hips, pulling her firmly against him.
She answered, her fingers digging into his hair, pulling him closer. The cold, hard glass was at her back. The solid, trembling heat of him was against her front. The city glittered, indifferent.
He broke the kiss, breathing heavily, his forehead resting against hers again. His hands went to the buttons of her dress, his fingers clumsy. “I need to feel you,” he whispered, a raw plea. “Not through glass. Not through words. Just you.”
She helped him, pushing the fabric from her shoulders. The cool air of the penthouse hit her skin, raising goosebumps. His mouth followed, hot and desperate, tracing the line of her collarbone, the swell of her breasts, the shocking, beautiful curve of her stomach. He dropped to his knees on the hard floor, his hands gripping her hips, his face pressed against her belly. She felt the wet heat of his tears on her skin.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured again, a prayer to the life inside her. “I’m so sorry.”
She carded her fingers through his hair, holding him there. “I know.”
He rose, stripping off his own clothes in rough, impatient motions. There was no finesse. He lifted her, her bare back meeting the cold, unyielding glass. She gasped, the shock of temperature echoing the shock of his intensity. He entered her in one smooth, desperate thrust, a fusion of need and penance that made her cry out, her head thudding back against the window.
His rhythm was relentless, a physical driving out of demons. Each movement was a vow, a reclamation. The penthouse was silent except for their ragged breathing, the soft slap of skin, the occasional low groan ripped from his throat. She clung to him, her legs locked around his waist, her fingers leaving crescents on his shoulders.
Tears tracked freely down his face, mingling with the sweat on his chest. He was breaking apart inside her, and she was holding him together. She watched his face, watched every flicker of pain and ecstasy, her own release building in a slow, deep wave.
He came with a shattered cry, his whole body seizing, his face buried in her neck. The force of it, the surrender, triggered her own climax, a silent, shuddering contraction that wrung a whimper from her lips.
For a long minute, they stayed like that, pinned between the immovable glass and the unmovable force of their joined bodies. The city lights swam in her tear-blurred vision.
Slowly, he softened inside her. He didn’t pull away. He leaned into her, his weight fully supported by the window, both of them held up by engineered strength. Their sweat had made abstract, clouded patterns on the ballistic glass behind her.
He finally lifted his head. He looked exhausted. Cleansed.
“Gabriel Jose and Veronica Jean,” he said, his voice hoarse.
She nodded, a real smile finally touching her lips. “Gabe and Ronnie.”
He carefully eased her down, her feet touching the floor. He kept his arms around her, steadying her. They stood there, naked and vulnerable before the whole city, but safer than they’d felt in years.
“I love you,” he said. It wasn’t a whisper. It was a statement, solid as the glass behind them.
“I know,” she said, repeating her earlier words, but the meaning had shifted. It was no longer an acceptance of an apology. It was a fact, as fundamental as gravity. She reached for his hand, placing it firmly over the place where their children grew. “They know, too.”
They stood in the quiet dark, their breath gradually slowing, the future—terrifying, brilliant, theirs—beginning to solidify in the space between their sweat-slicked skin and the unbreakable window.