Chapter 9: Harvest of Shame
The house was too quiet after the thrumming tension of the clinic. Letty had cleaned up lunch, the clatter of plates a mundane sound against the silence that had settled between Dominic and Catalina. Mina was down for her nap, a temporary peace.
Dominic stood at the kitchen window, staring out at the barn. The coordinates from the message burned in his mind. Miami. Two days. He could feel Catalina watching him from the table, her stillness a question.
“We need to talk about it,” she said, her voice low.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he replied, not turning. “I go. I find Hector. I fix it.”
“Just like that.” It wasn’t a question.
“It’s what I do.” He finally looked at her. The fear from the clinic was still there, deep in her eyes, but overlaid now with a sharper, more immediate dread. “You think I’m letting that world come here? To her?” He jerked his head toward the stairs, toward Mina sleeping. “To you?”
“I think you walking back into it is the same thing.” She stood up, wincing slightly as she adjusted to the weight of her stomach. “You think they won’t follow the bait right back to you? To us?”
“They won’t get the chance.”
“Dom.” She walked to him, placing a hand on his arm. Her touch was warm, urgent. “We have a system here. It’s safe. We bring Letty in, we hunker down. We wait. We’ve done it before.”
“This isn’t a rival crew,” he said, covering her hand with his. “It’s a cartel. They don’t get bored and go away. They send more guys. Better guys.” He took a breath, the smell of her shampoo cutting through his resolve. “We stop it at the source. We make Hector their problem, not ours.”
“And if it’s a trap?”
“Then it’s a trap.” His thumb stroked the back of her hand. “But I’ll know that going in.”
She searched his face, looking for a crack in his certainty. Finding none, she leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “I hate this.”
“I know.” He kissed her hair. “I’ll be quick. In and out.”
They stayed like that for a long moment, drawing strength from the simple contact. Then a board creaked upstairs. Mina. Catalina sighed, pulling away. “I’ll get her.”
After she left, Dominic walked out into the fading afternoon. He needed to move, to do something with his hands. The Bronco’s brake lines were finished, but he could check the fluids, torque the lugs. Physical work to outrun the thoughts.
He pushed open the barn door. The interior was cool and dim, thick with the scents of oil, gasoline, and old hay from the loft. He flicked on the overhead lights, but one bulb was out, casting a long shadow from the tractor. He grabbed a wrench from the bench, his movements automatic.
He didn’t hear Letty come in. He was lying on the creeper under the Bronco, staring up at the undercarriage, when her voice echoed softly in the vast space.
“You’re really going to do it, aren’t you? Go after him.”
He slid out from under the truck. She was leaning against the workbench, arms crossed. She’d changed into one of his old shirts, the sleeves rolled up.
“You got a better idea?” he asked, wiping his hands on a rag.
“Yeah. We all go. Strength in numbers.”
“No.” The word was final. “You stay here. You help Cat. You’re her extra set of eyes, her extra pair of hands.”
“I’m not a babysitter, Dom.”
“I know what you are,” he said, standing up. “You’re a liability with a price on your head. Here, you’re a guard. Out there, you’re a target.” He tossed the rag aside. “And I can’t be worrying about both of you.”
The truth of it hung between them. He wasn’t protecting Catalina from Letty; he was protecting Catalina with Letty. It was the only configuration that made sense.
Letty looked away, her jaw tight. She was silent for a long time, her gaze tracing the shapes of the tools on the wall. “You know,” she said finally, her voice quiet, “when I first got here… I thought it was just you two being you. The secretive shit, the intensity. Then I saw you look at her.” She met his eyes. “And I saw her look back.”
Dominic froze. Every muscle in his body locked. The casual clatter of the barn faded to a distant hum.
Letty pushed off the bench. “I’m not stupid, Dom. I’ve known you both since we were kids. I know what love looks like on you. It looks like that. It looks like this.” She gestured around at the hidden life they’d built. “And I know Mina’s eyes. They’re yours.”
The air left his lungs. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. He could deny it. He could rage. But the weariness that suddenly flooded him was too deep. The lie was too heavy to carry in front of the one person who had always seen through him anyway.
He didn’t speak. It was confirmation enough.
Letty nodded slowly, absorbing his silence. “That’s why you really left. Not just the heat. Not just the money.” She let out a long, shaky breath. “Okay.”
“‘Okay’?” he echoed, the word rough.
“Okay, I get it now. All of it.” She hugged herself. “It’s a hell of a secret to keep.”
“We don’t talk about it,” he said, the warning clear in his tone.
“Who would I talk to?” she asked, a bitter laugh escaping her. “The cops? The priest? My therapist?” She shook her head. “It’s your life. It’s your… family.” She said the word with a new understanding. “I’m just saying I see it. And I know why you can’t let anything touch it.”
The unspoken agreement settled over them. It wasn’t approval. It was alignment. She was inside the truth now, another layer of protection around their fragile core.
“I need you sharp here,” Dominic said, the subject closed. “Keep the routine. Take Mina to the park. Go into town. Act normal. If anyone’s watching, they’ll be looking for panic, for hiding.”
“And you’ll be in Miami playing chicken with a cartel.”
“Something like that.”
He turned back to the Bronco, picking up a socket set. The conversation was over. The plan was set. Letty watched him for another moment, then turned and left the barn, the door swinging shut behind her with a soft thud.
Night fell, deep and star-pierced. The weight of the coming days pressed down, a physical pressure in the house. After Mina was asleep, Catalina came downstairs, finding Dominic at the kitchen table, a map of Miami open on his laptop, satellite images of the café from the coordinates pulled up.
She didn’t speak. She just stood behind his chair, her hands resting on his shoulders, her thumbs working the knotted tension at the base of his neck. He leaned back into her touch, closing his eyes.
“You should get some sleep,” she murmured.
“Can’t.”
Her hands stilled. “Come upstairs.”
He followed her, not to their bedroom, but past it, up the narrower stairs to the barn loft. It was a space they rarely used, filled with storage and forgotten things, but it was private. Isolated from the sleeping house.
Hay dust motes danced in the slivers of moonlight coming through the gaps in the roof. The air was cool and smelled of dry grass and old wood. Catalina spread a blanket over a pile of hay bales, a makeshift bed in the silvered gloom.
They didn’t speak. Words were useless now. There was only the desperate, clawing need for connection, for a physical confirmation of life before the separation, before the danger. It was frantic. Clothes were pulled at, not removed with care. His hands were rough on her skin, hers desperate in his hair.
He rolled her beneath him in the rustling hay, the coarse stalks prickling through the blanket. The moonlight caught the sheen of tears on her cheeks, not of sadness, but of a furious, helpless love. He kissed them away, his mouth moving to her ear.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered, his voice a raw, broken thing against her skin. His body was trembling with the effort of his own restraint. “Cat, Jesus Christ, tell me to—”
Her answer was to bite down on the hard muscle of his shoulder, a sharp, sudden pain to muffle the cry tearing from her throat as he entered her. It was an anchor, a shared, secret hurt in the whirlwind. Her teeth stayed locked, her body arching against his as they moved together in the silent loft, a wordless, furious conversation of skin and breath and stifled sound.
Later, they lay tangled, spent, the hay scratching their sweat-dampened skin. The moon had moved, casting different shadows. Catalina traced the red, half-moon mark her teeth had left on his shoulder.
“You’ll have a bruise,” she whispered.
“Good.” His voice was gravel. “I’ll carry it with me.”
They dressed in silence. The mundane act of pulling on jeans, zipping sweatshirts, felt like a return from another world. They crept back down the stairs, through the sleeping house, ghosts in their own home.
As they passed the door to the guest room, Dominic saw it was slightly ajar. A slice of darkness within. He paused, a cold understanding trickling down his spine. He looked at Catalina. Her eyes had caught it too, widening slightly. Someone had been awake. Someone had heard them leave, or return.
Maybe both.
They said nothing. They slipped into their own bedroom, closing the door softly behind them. They didn’t speak of it. Some truths were too heavy, even for the silence they shared.
The morning was a rushed, brittle thing. Dominic packed a small duffel—cash, a fake passport, a clean burner phone, a single change of clothes. No weapons. He couldn’t risk airport security. He’d source what he needed there.
Letty made coffee, her movements efficient, her eyes avoiding theirs. The knowledge from the barn hung in the air, but so did the new, unspoken knowledge from the loft. It crowded the kitchen, making the space feel small.
Catalina stood by the front door, holding Mina on her hip. The little girl was sleepy, clutching a stuffed rabbit.
“Say bye to Daddy,” Catalina said, her voice too bright.
Mina waved a chubby hand. “Bye, Daddy.”
Dominic’s heart clenched. He kissed her head, inhaling the smell of her hair. Then he turned to Catalina. He didn’t kiss her goodbye. Not in front of Letty. Not with all the unsaid things between them. He just cupped her face, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. His eyes said everything.
“I’ll call,” he said, the promise thin.
She nodded, pressing her lips together to keep them from trembling.
Letty walked him out to the rented sedan he’d use to drive to the airport in Zurich. The morning mist was cold and damp.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” she said, handing him the car keys.
“Only kind I know,” he replied, opening the door.
“Dom.” She stopped him, her hand on his arm. She looked back at the house, then at him. Her face was grim. “What I saw… or didn’t see. It stays with me. You bring yourself back. You hear me? Not for me. For them. All three of them.”
He held her gaze for a long moment, then gave a single, sharp nod. He got in the car, started the engine, and didn’t look back as he drove down the winding mountain road.
The house receded in the rearview mirror, a small, warm-lit haven against the vast, cold gray of the Alps. Inside it, his heart was split in three. Ahead of him, a man named Hector sat at a café in Miami, a ticking clock beside a cup of coffee.
And somewhere in the space between, the dangerous world he’d left behind was waiting, patient as a coiled snake, for him to step back into its path.
And somewhere in the space between, the dangerous world he’d left behind was waiting, patient as a coiled snake, for him to step back into its path.
The first day was manageable. Catalina kept busy. She finished the brake job on the Bronco, the physical labor a dull relief. She took Mina to the park in the village, pushing the swing under a crisp, blue sky. Letty shadowed them, a quiet, watchful presence. They didn’t talk about Dominic. They talked about engine specs, about Mina’s new words, about the price of bread.
Catalina’s phone stayed silent. She checked it constantly, the black screen a tiny void.
“He said he’d call when he landed,” Letty offered that evening, watching Catalina stare at the device on the kitchen table.
“He didn’t,” Catalina replied, her voice flat.
Night came. She lay in their bed, her hand on the cool sheet where he should have been. The loft felt like a dream, a frantic illusion. The bruise on his shoulder, her secret mark, was already a continent away. She slept in fitful bursts, waking to the empty dark.
The second day dawned gray and damp. The silence from the phone became a physical we
The second day dawned gray and damp. The silence from the phone became a physical weight in Catalina’s pocket. She’d jump at the rumble of a distant car engine, her hand automatically going to her stomach where the twins slept, unmoved by her nerves.
“He’s fine,” Letty said, not looking up from the carburetor she was cleaning at the kitchen table. The oily, metallic scent cut through the smell of baking bread. “No news is good news, right?”
“Since when?” Catalina shot back, too sharp. She winced, stirring the batter harder than necessary. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Letty held up a small jet, peering through it at the window’s gray light. “He’s a paranoid bastard. He won’t call unless he’s clear. You know that.”
Catalina did know. It didn’t help. The memory of his teeth gritting against her shoulder in the hayloft flashed, bright and painful, a secret anchor she couldn’t share. She poured the batter into a pan, the action rote. “He should have landed hours ago.”
“Planes get delayed. Lines get long.” Letty shrugged, but her shoulders were tense. “He’ll call.”
Mina’s cheerful babbling from her playpen was the only normal sound. The clock on the wall ticked, each second a small, distinct torture. By mid-afternoon, the silence had thickened into something palpable. Catalina couldn’t sit still.
“I’m checking the perimeter sensors,” she announced, grabbing a jacket.
“I’ll come,” Letty said, already standing.
“Stay with Mina.”
“She can come too. The fresh air’s good.” Letty’s tone brooked no argument. It was the voice of a soldier, not a guest.
They walked the tree line in a cold drizzle, the electronic fence posts beeping their all-clear status in a steady, boring rhythm. Mina, bundled in her stroller, pointed at a crow. “Bird!” she announced.
“Yeah, sweetie. Bird,” Catalina murmured, her eyes scanning the misty valley below. Nothing moved but the dripping branches. The utter normality of the scene felt like a trick.
Back inside, the warmth of the house was a lie. Every quiet corner felt like it was holding its breath. Catalina picked up a torque wrench from the bench, its solid weight a comfort. She walked to the Bronco, its hood still open from her earlier work.
“Hand me that three-eighths socket, will you?” she asked Letty, her voice carefully even.
Letty passed it over, leaning against the fender. “You already torqued those headers.”
“I’m checking.”
“You checked twice yesterday.” Letty watched her ratchet the same bolt, the click-click-click loud in the quiet barn. “Cat. Breathe.”
Catalina stopped, the wrench going still in her hand. She stared at the engine’s intricate parts, her vision blurring. “What if he’s walking into it? What if Hector’s already dead and it’s just a room full of them waiting?”
“Then he’ll walk back out.” Letty’s voice was low, certain. “He’s Dominic Toretto. He doesn’t walk into rooms he can’t walk out of.”
“That’s the myth.” Catalina finally looked at her, eyes glistening. “I live with the man. He bleeds. He gets tired.”
“He also loves you.” The words were simple, blunt. “That makes him more dangerous, not less. You know that.”
A vibration buzzed against the workbench. Not Catalina’s phone. Letty’s. They both stared at the cheap burner phone they’d given her, its screen now lit up with an unknown number. The generic ringtone was obscenely loud.
Letty snatched it, her thumb hovering over the answer. She looked at Catalina, a silent question.
“Put it on speaker,” Catalina whispered, her hand gripping the wrench like a weapon.
Letty answered. “Yeah?”
A moment of hollow static, then a voice. Not Dominic’s. A voice worn thin by smoke and bad decisions. “Letty? That you?”
Hector.
Catalina’s breath caught. Letty’s eyes widened. “Hector? Where are you? Are you clean?”
A wet, coughing laugh. “Clean? I’m sitting in a puddle of my own sweat in a Motel 6 off I-95, Letty. I ain’t been clean since third grade.” The bravado was thin, peeling away at the edges. “Your boy. The serious one. He’s here.”
“Is he okay?” The question burst from Catalina before she could stop it.
A pause. “Who’s that?”
“A friend,” Letty snapped, covering. “Answer the question.”
“He’s upright. For now.” Hector’s voice dropped to a ragged whisper. “He found me. Man, he found me. Didn’t even see him ‘til he was sliding into the booth, cool as you please.” A shiver seemed to travel down the line. “He laid it out. Says you’re under his protection. Says you’re a ghost.”
“And?” Letty pressed.
“And he wants me to make a call. To the people who are… unhappy with me.” Hector swallowed audibly. “He wants me to tell them the deal’s off. That you were just hired help, you don’t know nothing, and you’re gone.”
“Will they believe you?” Catalina asked, her voice cold.
“They might. If I sound convincing enough. If I throw them another bone.” Hector’s tone turned sly, calculating. “Your boy’s got a proposal. A trade.”
“What kind of trade?” Letty’s knuckles were white around the phone.
“Me,” Hector said, a strange defiance entering his voice. “I give them a new target. A bigger fish. Someone who’s been skimming, someone they already want. In return, they forget about you. Permanently.”
The plan was pure Dominic. Redirect the threat. Offer a solution wrapped in a new problem. It was brilliant and insanely risky.
“Where is he now?” Catalina demanded.
“Right here. Staring a hole through me. You wanna talk to him?” There was a rustling sound, the phone being handed over.
The line went quiet for a beat. Then his voice came through, low and steady. “Cat.”
Just her name. It flooded her system, a dizzying mix of relief and fresh fear. “Are you whole?”
“I’m fine.” His voice was closer to the microphone now, intimate. “It’s messy, but it’s working. You good?”
“We’re good.” She closed her eyes, leaning into the sound of him. “The… everything’s quiet here.”
“Keep it that way.” A rustle, like he was turning away. She could picture his hand cupped over the phone, his voice dropping further. “The package. It’s okay?”
Her hand went to her stomach. “Kicking like they’re trying out for the World Cup.”
A low, quiet huff of air—his version of a laugh. “Good.” The affection was stark, a momentary crack in his armor. Then the professional chill seeped back in. “I’ll be back in forty-eight hours. Stay close to Letty.”
“Dom,” she said, urgency cutting through. “This trade. It’s you stepping into the middle. They’ll see you.”
“Let them see,” he said, and the line went dead.
The dial tone buzzed against the workbench. Letty slowly lowered the phone. The barn felt different now. The silence wasn’t empty; it was charged, waiting.
“He’s putting himself on their board,” Letty said quietly.
“I know.” Catalina looked down at the torque wrench still in her hand. She placed it carefully on the bench, the clank final. The fear was still there, coiling in her gut, but it had shape now. It had a timeline.
Forty-eight hours.
She walked out of the barn, into the misty afternoon. Letty followed. They didn’t speak. There was nothing more to say. The plan was in motion, a gear now turning thousands of miles away, and all they could do was wait for its echoes to reach them.
Inside, Mina was fussing, tired of her toys. Catalina lifted her, settling the warm, solid weight against her shoulder. She paced the kitchen, her slow footsteps a counter-rhythm to the frantic beat of her heart.
“He’ll call when it’s done,” Letty said from the doorway, watching her.
Catalina just nodded, her cheek resting against Mina’s soft hair. She inhaled the baby-shampoo scent, trying to anchor herself in this tangible, present love. But her mind was already in a cheap Miami motel room, watching a door, waiting for a shadow to step back through it.
The gray dusk deepened into night. She put Mina to bed, the routine a familiar balm. Downstairs, Letty made more coffee neither of them would drink.
The phone on the table remained dark and silent. The forty-eight-hour clock was ticking in her head, a slow, relentless countdown. Every imagined scenario—a deal gone smooth, a double-cross, a bullet in a dim parking lot—played behind her eyes.
She stood at the same kitchen window Dominic had stared out of just days before. Her reflection in the dark glass looked back, pale and resolved. He was out there, fighting for this fragile peace. For the life humming quietly in her belly, for the child sleeping upstairs, for the truth they sheltered in this house of stone and secrets.
All she could do was hold the line. Keep the lights on. Keep the silence from swallowing them whole.
She turned from the window, meeting Letty’s watchful gaze across the room. A silent understanding passed between them. The waiting had just become a vigil.