Blood and Vows.

Chapter 12 — Mother’s Call

The massage therapist’s thumbs worked along the knots at the base of Sebastian’s neck, slow circles meant to convince the body that the world was not, in fact, on fire. The room was warm and scented with eucalyptus; the curtains filtered the afternoon into a soft, forgiving light. If someone took a picture right now, it would look like serenity.

He counted his breaths anyway. Four in, four out. The habit of a man who knew peace was a costume.

Footsteps clicked across the tile—measured, unhurried. Leila never hurried unless blood was on the floor. She stopped just inside his peripheral vision, a dark silhouette framed by the doorway.

“Boss,” she said, voice low, dry. “Your phone.”

He didn’t open his eyes. “Who is it?”

“Her.”

Now he looked. Leila held the phone the way one holds a blade, careful not to cut herself on the edge of the name on the screen.

Selma.

Sebastian let the breath go. “Give me a second,” he told the therapist, sliding off the table. The white sheet sloughed down to his waist; he caught it absently, wrapped it around his hips, and took the phone.

He answered on the third vibration. “Mother.”

Silence for a beat. He could hear ice settling in a glass, the hush of a room that did not allow noise to be accidental.

“Sebastian,” Selma said at last, warmth arranged over steel. “You sound relaxed. I trust you’re not.”

He smiled without teeth. “You taught me not to be.”

“Good. I dislike dull sons.” The ice chimed again. “You will bring the banker to me tomorrow.”

Straight to the throat. No preface, no feint. “Samantha.”

“Mm. Such a practical name. Tomorrow. Four o’clock. My villa.”

He glanced up at Leila. She had already moved to the window, looking out through the sheer. Her posture said trap; her face pretended to admire the bougainvillea.

“She’s more useful away from your house,” Sebastian said. “She runs quiet money because she appears unowned. Parade her in front of your guard dogs and the market will smell a leash.”

“How charming when my son lectures me on optics.” The velvet in Selma’s voice turned. “She is already owned, dear. She simply doesn’t know it. Bring her, and I will teach her what family feels like.”

“What family feels like,” he repeated mildly, “is a knife.”

On the other end, someone laughed—a low male sound that tried to be hidden and failed. Fernando. Of course he was there. Selma did love an audience.

“You forget yourself,” she said, each word a polished stone. “Samantha handles ledgers that interest me. There is a book I want to see with my own eyes.”

“The ledger,” he said. So she’d heard a whisper, or planted it. “You could be patient.”

“Patience is a luxury for women with fewer enemies,” Selma said. “Tomorrow, Sebastián. Bring her by the east gate at fifteen-thirty. No excuses, no poetry. If she is wise, she will walk out again. If she is not…” A delicate lift at the end of the sentence. “Do not make me repeat myself.”

He looked at his knuckles, flexed his hand until the urge to put it through the wall receded. “Understood.”

“Good boy,” she purred, sweet as arsenic. “And, Sebastián—come dressed as if you still remember who made you.”

The line clicked dead.

He kept the phone at his ear a moment longer, listening to the absence. Then he lowered it and set it face down on the table.

Leila turned from the window. “Well?”

“She wants a show,” he said. “Tomorrow. Four. Her villa.”

“And the banker?”

“She wants to smell fear on her,” he said. “And ink on the ledger.”

Leila’s mouth thinned. “You agreed.”

He pulled on his shirt, buttons fastening with short, precise motions. “Selma doesn’t offer agreements. She offers ultimatums dressed as invitations.”

“You could still say no.”

He looked up at that, half amused. “And spend the afternoon counting the number of ways a mother can set a son on fire?” He shook his head. “No. Not today.”

Leila came closer, arms folded. “Then we plan like it’s an extraction, not an introduction.”

“That,” he said, “is why I pay you.”

She held his gaze. “You don’t pay me enough.”

He smiled for real this time, small and brief. “Get Martin. Ten minutes.”

Leila nodded and slipped out.

The therapist cleared her throat softly from the doorway, uncertain. “Sir…?”

“Thank you,” he said without looking. “We’re finished.”

When the door closed, he let the breath go, the kind that scraped ribs on its way out. Selma’s voice had a way of turning rooms colder. He rolled his shoulders once, loosening muscles that would knot again within the hour, then picked up the phone and scrolled. The last outgoing message to Samantha sat there, banal as a grocery list.

Confirm. Villa 1600. No delays. —S

He thought of Alex then—ridiculous, involuntary—the spark of her eyes when she decided a room didn’t intimidate her, the stubborn line of her mouth. If she knew about the villa, she’d run at it like a problem with a pulse. He did not let himself imagine her anywhere near Selma’s walls.

“Stay away,” he said to a woman who wasn’t in the room, a useless charm against a woman who didn’t obey.

The door opened again. Leila entered with Martin on her heels. Martin moved like a man accustomed to narrow hallways and inconvenient truths; he took in Sebastian’s face, the half-buttoned shirt, the phone on the table, and knew enough to start talking.

“What do we know?” he asked.

“Mother wants Samantha at the villa,” Sebastian said. “Four p.m., east gate.”

Martin’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes cooled. “She’ll have half her shooters on balconies just to watch you obey.”

“And the other half in the trees to make sure I do,” Leila added.

Sebastian nodded. “We use two cars. Samantha in the second. The first carries a decoy—same bag, a woman in a wig, same build. Split at the last light before the gate. I take the decoy straight through. Martin, you bring Samantha around the service road, into the citrus house. We control the dwell time.”

“Selma asked for the east gate,” Martin said.

“Selma asked for obedience,” Sebastian corrected. “She did not ask for the route of the citrus delivery.”

Leila’s mouth twitched. “I’ll have uniforms for the greenhouse. Two of ours, one of theirs. Ours will know the difference between theater and war.”

“And the ledger?” Martin asked. “If she demands to see it, and Samantha says no, Selma will call that insolence.”

Sebastian walked to the credenza, opened a drawer, and took out a thin, leather-bound book with a gold edge that had never known a real accountant. He set it down.

“She’ll see this first,” he said. “Numbers that mean nothing but look like sin. Samantha will bring the real thing—or what she thinks is the real thing. We let Mother taste the bait, and then we add a bone.”

Leila ran a finger along the blank leather. “How much of this is buying time, Sebastián?”

“All of it,” he said. “Time for me to read my mother while she reads the banker. Time to decide whether Samantha is a risk I can carry or a wolf in silk.”

Martin leaned his hips against the table. “And if Selma decides the wolf is you?”

Sebastian buttoned the last button, slid the cufflinks home. “Then we remind her that wolves travel in packs.”

Leila glanced at the phone. “Do you want Stevens to smell this? If the Bureau hits the outer fence at four, Selma blames a gardener and a ghost. If they hit at five, she blames you.”

He weighed it. The old equation. How much truth could a double life hold before it cracked the bowl?

“No sirens,” he said at last. “Not tomorrow. If Stevens asks, tell him the weather looks foul and I forgot my umbrella.”

Leila’s brows lifted a fraction. “Understood.”

Martin straightened. “I’ll prep the routes, talk to the greenhouse boys, and pull the long rifles off the south wall. If Selma wants to dramatize, let her do it facing a lens.”

“Keep the lenses ours,” Sebastian said.

Martin nodded once and left.

Leila lingered. “You’re sure about Samantha? Bringing her inside—if Selma smells a lie, she’ll make it rain teeth.”

“I’m not sure about anyone,” he said. “But I’m sure about what happens if I pretend I can keep both worlds apart.” He looked at Leila. “If Selma suspects you had a hand in any of this—if she touches you—”

“She won’t,” Leila said, and that was faith or pride or both. “I’ll be at your shoulder. As always.”

He almost told her to stay outside the gate. He didn’t. Orders were only as good as the hands that carried them.

“Call Samantha,” he said instead. “Confirm the schedule. Tell her to bring the ledger balanced and her face neutral. If she asks who will be present, tell her: family.”

Leila winced. “Cruel.”

“Accurate,” he said.

She moved toward the door, then paused. “And Alex?” The name was soft, like a blade laid flat.

He didn’t let the flinch reach his face. “Alex is a problem for another afternoon.”

“Tomorrow is another afternoon.”

He met her eyes. “Keep my floors clean today.”

Leila nodded once and left him with the quiet.

He picked up the ledger and flipped it open. Blank pages stared back, smug. He imagined Selma’s fingers riffling through, the way she checked for lies: smell the paper, watch the eyes, taste the fear. He had learned that as a boy, standing too straight in hallways that swallowed sound, while his mother decided whether to kiss his hair or slap his mouth for asking the wrong question in the right tone.

On impulse, he wrote a number on the first page. A date that meant nothing to her and everything to him. He closed the book and slipped it into a leather satchel.

His phone buzzed: a message from Samantha. Received. Villa at 1600. Will bring ledger. —S.B.

He typed a simple reply. Understood. East gate. Don’t be late.

He didn’t add and don’t be afraid. Fear would keep her alert; comfort would make her slow.

He walked to the window. The sea flared beyond the palms, flat and bright and cold. Somewhere beyond that line, a city waited where Alex had melted into crowd and rain. He wondered—not for the first time—if his debt to her was a rope around his own throat or the only proof he had teeth left.