Chapter 5: Jules's Grim News
Sleep was a deep, black well, and Ana surfaced from it slowly. She was alone in the bed, the space beside her long cold. The scent of coffee and something savory—eggs, maybe—drifted from the main living area. The digital clock on the nightstand glowed 9:47 AM. She’d slept like the dead, as Nevaieh had said, but now the neural pathways, freshly washed, began to spark with the previous day’s warnings. Fortified position, she thought, stretching sore muscles. The phrase felt less like a boast now and more like a homework assignment.She found the silk robe and wrapped it around herself, padding out barefoot. The vast space was filled with clean morning light, bleaching the concrete and glass. Nevaieh stood at the stainless-steel stove, her hair down in a chaotic, beautiful mess, pushing scrambled eggs around a pan with focused intensity.She wore only low-slung sweatpants. The landscape of tattoos on her back—a Virgin Mary, script in a language Ana didn’t know, abstract patterns of smoke and thorn—was a stark contrast to the domestic task.
“You cook?” Ana’s voice was sleep-roughened.
Nevaieh glanced over her shoulder, a flicker of that private smile touching her lips.“I survive.That involves eating. You want three eggs or four?”
“Three.” Ana slid onto a stool at the island, watching her. There was a strange normalcy to it, a slice of life she hadn’t anticipated. The most feared woman in Miami, making breakfast.“Where’s Rafa? I thought we had training.”
“He’ll be here at eleven.I told him to let you sleep. Your brain can’t learn if it’s mush.” She divided the eggs onto two plates, added buttered toast, and brought them over.“Eat.”
They ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes. The eggs were perfect, fluffy and just salty enough. “Thank you,” Ana said, meaning for more than the food.Nevaieh just nodded, chewing. She was about to say something when a discreet, insistent chime echoed from the security panel near the front door. Not the elevator arrival tone.A different, sharper sound. Nevaieh’s eyes snapped to it, her body going still.The casual ease evaporated, replaced by a wired, predatory alertness. She put her fork down softly.“Who is it?” Ana asked, her own pulse picking up.
Nevaieh didn’t answer.She walked to the panel, tapped the screen.A video feed appeared. It showed the private elevator lobby one floor down. A man stood there, pacing, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of a wrinkled linen jacket. He was gaunt, with a neatly trimmed beard going gray at the edges, and his normally easy-going face was etched with deep worry. It was Jules.Nevaieh’s jaw tightened.She hit the intercom. Her voice was flat, devoid of welcome. “Jules.”
“Nevaieh.” Jules’s voice crackled through the speaker, strained.“I need to see Ana. It’s urgent.”
“She’s working for me now.You know that. Urgent goes through Lourdes.”
“This can’t wait for channels, coño!” Jules’s composure cracked, a rare sight. “Please.It’s about her. Directly.”
Nevaieh looked back at Ana, a question in her eyes.Ana felt a cold trickle of dread start in her stomach. Jules wasn’t an alarmist. For him to come here, unannounced, breaking protocol… She nodded.Nevaieh released the elevator lock without another word.She turned to Ana. “Get dressed.Now.”
Ana didn’t need telling twice. She hurried to the bedroom, shedding the robe and pulling on the clothes from yesterday—the simple black jeans, the tank top. She ran her fingers through her curls, took a deep breath, and walked back out just as the penthouse elevator doors sighed open.Jules stepped out, his eyes scanning the room and landing on Ana. The relief in his face was momentary, quickly overwritten by a deeper, more profound anxiety. He glanced at Nevaieh, who had positioned herself between him and Ana, arms crossed, a silent sentinel.
“Jules, what’s wrong?” Ana asked, her voice steady despite the chill in her veins.Jules ran a hand over his face. “I was at La Carreta, having coffee.Making the rounds, you know?Someone was there. Someone asking questions.”
The cold trickle became a flood.“What kind of questions?”
“About you, mi vida. Specifically about you.Not just ‘have you seen her.’ They knew your name. They were asking about your habits.Where you liked to go. Who you were seen with lately.” He swallowed, his throat working. “And then they made a point of mentioning, very casually, that your ex, Ethan… that he was back in town. And that he was very, very interested in reconnecting.”
The name landed like a physical blow. The air left Ana’s lungs in a sharp, painful gasp.The fortified position she’d imagined crumbled in an instant. The tiles under her feet, the sleek furniture, the vast sky outside—all of it receded, muffled by a sudden, roaring rush of blood in her ears. She saw not the penthouse, but the cramped, dark bedroom of a shitty apartment in Little Havana. She felt not the cool air conditioning, but the stifling, beer-soaked heat of his breath. She heard not Jules’s worried voice, but Ethan’s, a low snarl twisted with possessive cruelty: ‘You try to leave me, and I will fucking kill you.I will find you. You’re mine.’
“Ana?” Nevaieh’s voice sounded far away.
Ana’s hands came up, clutching her own biceps, nails digging into the skin through the fabric. She wasn’t aware of doing it. A violent tremble started deep in her core and radiated outwards, making her teeth chatter.Her breaths came in short, desperate hitches, but no air seemed to reach her lungs. The room tilted.Spots danced at the edges of her vision.
“He said…” Her own voice was a choked, strangled thing, unfamiliar to her. “He said he’d kill me if I ever left.” The words, vocalized after being locked in a silent chamber of memory for so long, unleashed a torrent.Sobs racked her body, harsh and ugly. Tears streamed down her face, hot and shameful. She folded in on herself, rocking slightly, back and forth, a child’s motion of helpless terror.“He said he’d find me. He said… he said…”
Jules took a step forward, his face pale with pity. “Anaijiah, I—”
Nevaieh moved.It was a blur of controlled motion. She didn’t go to Ana. She stepped squarely between Jules and Ana, her back now to Ana, creating a barrier.Her stance was wide, planted. The quiet calm she’d worn all morning was gone, replaced by a glacial, focused intensity. Her gray eyes, fixed on Jules, were like chips of flint.
“He won’t get within a mile of her,” Nevaieh said. Her voice was low, but it cut through Ana’s hyperventilating sobs, clean and sharp as a scalpel.It wasn’t a reassurance. It was a statement of fact.She turned slowly then, just her head and shoulders. Her gaze found Ana, who was crumbling in on herself, a portrait of regressed trauma. Nevaieh’s expression didn’t soften, but something in it shifted, deepening from cold fury to something absolute. She took two strides and cupped Ana’s wet face in her hands, forcing her to meet her eyes. Her thumbs were hard against Ana’s cheekbones, an anchor in the storm.
“Look at me,” Nevaieh commanded, her voice leaving no room for disobedience.“Listen.He is a ghost. You are here, with me.In this room.Your breath is yours. Your skin is yours.” She leaned in closer, her words a fierce, whispered vow meant for Ana alone. “I will burn this city down to the bedrock before he touches you.Do you understand me? I will erase him.”
But Ana was drowning. The old terror, hibernating but never dead, had risen and swallowed her whole. The promise, massive and violent as it was, couldn’t penetrate the primal fear.She heard the words, but they bounced off the shell of her panic. She could only shake her head, a frantic, tiny motion, her eyes wide and unseeing, lost in the past.The sobs kept coming, shuddering through her, each one a silent scream. She was here, but she wasn’t.She was back there, small and trapped.
Nevaieh saw it.The failure of her words to reach the core of the terror. A new calculation flashed behind her eyes. She released Ana’s face and turned back to Jules, her voice returning to its flat, business-like tone.“You did right by coming.Now go. Tell no one you were here.Monitor your usual channels. If you hear his name again, you tell Lourdes.Not me. Lourdes.”
Jules nodded, relief and concern warring on his face.He gave Ana one last, helpless look, then turned and disappeared into the waiting elevator.
As the doors closed, Nevaieh moved again. She didn’t try to embrace Ana, to soothe her with soft touches.Instead, she gripped Ana’s shoulders, firm and unyielding. “Breathe,” she ordered, her voice brooking no argument.“In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Follow me.” She took an exaggerated, slow breath in, holding Ana’s petrified gaze.Gasping, Ana tried to mimic her. The first attempt was a ragged failure.The second caught halfway. On the third, a thread of oxygen made it through the panic. Nevaieh kept it up, a relentless, rhythmic guide, until Ana’s breathing was no longer hitched screams but deep, shuddering gulps. The violent tremors subsided to a faint, constant shake.“Good,” Nevaieh said, finally pulling Ana into an embrace. It wasn’t gentle. It was tight, constricting, a solid wall of muscle and bone and intent.“You are not there.You are here. You are with me.” She repeated it, a mantra against the memory, her lips against Ana’s temple.“He is a ghost. I am real.”
Slowly, the present moment began to seep back in. The feel of Nevaieh’s arms, the smell of her skin, the quiet hum of the penthouse. The terror didn’t vanish, but it was pushed back, contained by the sheer physical reality of the woman holding her.
Ana went limp, all the fight and fear leaching out, leaving her hollow and exhausted.She buried her face in Nevaieh’s neck. “I’m scared,” she whispered, the admission a defeat.
Nevaieh’s hand came up, cradling the back of her head. “I know,” she said, and for the first time, Ana heard not just strength in her voice, but a grim, shared understanding. “So am I. But not of him. I’m scared of what I’ll do to him when he’s found.” She pulled back just enough to look down at Ana. The fear was gone from her eyes, replaced by a terrifying clarity.“We’re not hiding.Rafa will be here soon. You’re going to train.You’re going to learn. And then,” she said, her voice dropping to a near whisper, “we’re going hunting.”