Page 53 of South of Justice

She said nothing, letting his words sink in. It was clear he didn’t just mean that the Marshals Service had turned their backs on him. Whatever he had done had caused his whole country to paint him as an enemy.

“You just get better at pretending you were always meant to be here,” he said.

She looked over at him, something flickering in her gaze. “Yeah,” she murmured. “I know that feeling.”

The silence shifted. The air between them seemed to crackle, as if the broken neon sign outside the window was electrifying the air. It felt harder to breathe than usual, and she felt a slow burn ignite low in her belly.

He sat up slightly, wincing as the movement pulled on his ribs.

“You need anything?” she asked quietly.

“Other than a time machine?”

She forced herself to break whatever spell this situation, and his shirtlessness, had cast on her. Walking to the mini fridge, she pulled out a water bottle and tossed it to him. “Hydration, actually. Revolutionary concept.”

He grinned and twisted the cap off, taking a long drink. She watched the movement of his throat as he swallowed, the bob of his Adams apple.

He caught her looking. “You know,” he said, “you don’t have to keep your guard up all the time.”

She arched a brow. “I’m not sure that’s true.”

“You let it down with me. Back in the cabin.”

Her face went still. “That was strategy.”

“Sure,” he said, but his voice was softer now. “And this?” He gestured to the space between them, so narrow now it could be crossed in a breath.

Lucía’s heart pounded. “This is logistics.”

Ryan laughed, a real one this time, warm and weary. He stood and crossed the room, stopping just short of touching her. “You’re a terrible liar.”

She looked up at him, the motel light catching in her eyes. She felt her chest rising and falling, but she couldn’t seem to get oxygen into her lungs. The burn in her belly had become a full-on inferno. “Goodnight,” she whispered.

Ryan didn’t move for a beat. His face was as impassive as ever, but she could swear his eyes had dulled with desire. Then they cleared, and he stepped back. “Night.”

She turned and dimmed the light. The shadows between them stretched like tension cables.

Lucía lay down, eyes open to the dark. She told herself to breathe, to rest, to let it go, but her body wouldn’t listen. Her blood hummed with a nervous electricity, as if something in her had been reawakened after years of quiet.

It scared her, this feeling. This pull toward something she couldn’t control, couldn’t logic her way out of. Wanting someone was dangerous. Trusting someone was even worse. She had spent so long building walls, learning to live without this quiver in her belly. And now here it was, curling beneath her ribs like a live wire.

From the sound of Ryan turning restlessly in the other bed, she wasn’t the only one chasing sleep and failing.

THIRTY-FOUR

The motel roomwas still and heavy with warmth, the filtered light creeping through the slats of the broken blinds. Outside, Salina Cruz was waking up. Lucía heard the clatter of a street vendor’s cart, the low whine of a scooter weaving through traffic on the coastal road.

She stood at the sink in the bathroom, toothbrush dangling from her fingers. Her hair was still wet from the shower and stuck to her back. The ceramic tiles were cold beneath her bare feet.

She stared at her reflection. Not at the dark circles or the lines of fatigue around her mouth. Not at the fading bruise on her shoulder or the scratch on her collarbone she didn’t remember getting. But at her eyes.

They looked too awake. Too alive.

She rinsed her mouth, turned off the tap, and leaned on the counter. Ryan was still asleep in the other room or pretending to be.

Her mind went back to Mateo, as it so often did in these quiet moments when she had nothing to distract her mind.

He’d been brilliant. Witty. Endlessly curious. And he’d cared about her in a way that no one ever had. Why, oh why hadn’t she chosen him? Why hadn’t she let him cross that invisible line on the rooftop that time?