The Moretti Obsession

SEVEN

*Vivienne*

The glass was still falling when Lucien moved.

He grabbed the ledger from my hands and shoved it into the waistband of his jeans, at the small of his back. Covered it with his shirt. Like it mattered. Like paper mattered more than the people downstairs screaming.

“Stay down,” he said.

I was already moving to the window. Not down. Never down.

The laundromat was on fire.

Not all of it. Just the front. Someone threw something — bottle, bomb, I didn’t know — and now orange light was licking up the metal shutters. The air smelled like chemicals and burning plastic.

“Rivals,” Lucien said behind me. He was at the door, listening. Gun in his hand. Again. “They tracked the video.”

The video. My face. His name. Of course they came.

I looked at the ledger. The corner was sticking out of his shirt. My father’s handwriting, inches from his skin.

_Full immunity. Trade: Moretti, all operations._

My dad signed us away. All of us.

My hands felt empty without the book. Without the hate.

“Vivienne.” Lucien’s voice snapped. “Focus.”

I blinked. The fire was spreading. Smoke coming under the door now. Thin. Black.

“Back exit?” I asked.

“Roof.” He nodded up. Access hatch in the ceiling. Rusty. Painted shut. “Can you climb?”

I could. I’d climbed worse in foster care, getting out windows when the dads came home drunk.

Lucien kicked a chair under the hatch. Tested it. It held.

“Go,” he said.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I’m always bleeding.” He gave me a look. “Go.”

I went.

The hatch screamed when I forced it. Metal on metal. Paint flaked into my eyes. The air outside was cold, clean. For one second. Then smoke billowed up with me.

Roof. Gravel. Three stories up. Mexico City spread out, unaware, lights on like nothing was burning.

Lucien came up after me. Slower. His arm was bad. The stitches I just did were already weeping through the bandage.

He pulled the hatch shut. It wouldn’t matter. Fire doesn’t care about doors.

“You okay?” he asked.

Stupid question.

I sat down. Gravel bit into my legs. I was still barefoot. Had been since the bedroom. Since the gun. Since before.

I held my hands out. They were shaking again.

“Your dad,” Lucien said. He sat next to me. Not touching. Close enough I could feel heat off him. “He wasn’t all bad.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m not lying to make you feel better.” He looked out at the city. Not at me. Easier that way. “He loved you. Loved your mom. That’s why he did it. Thought he could get you out clean.”

“That’s worse,” I said. My voice cracked. “He chose him over you, and me over both of you, and we all lost.”

“Yeah.”

Smoke was coming through the hatch now. Thick. The roof would go next.

“I regret your mom,” Lucien said.

The world stopped.

He said it plain. No drama. No apology. Just fact.

“She came to me that morning,” he went on. “Told me what he was doing. Begged me to take you and run. Leave him. She knew I wouldn’t.”

My throat closed.

“She got in the way,” he said. “Not on purpose. He grabbed her. Used her. I couldn’t...” He stopped. Swallowed. “I didn’t mean to hit her. I meant to hit him. She moved.”

Collateral. He’d said it before. Now I knew what it cost him to say it.

“Two bullets,” I whispered. “You said two.”

“One was for him. After.” His hands were fists on his knees. “He was still alive. For a minute. She wasn’t.”

I remembered. The closet. The smell of copper. The sound. Not two. Three. I’d always thought I miscounted.

I didn’t.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

He finally looked at me. Eyes black. Tired. Honest.

“Because you put the ledger down,” he said. “And you didn’t pick the gun back up.”

Down below, something exploded. The laundromat. Windows blew out. Heat hit my face even up here.

We had seconds.

Lucien stood. Held out his hand. Not a command. An offer.

“We jump to the next roof,” he said. “It’s close. We can make it.”

I looked at his hand. Blood on it. Mine, mostly.

I looked at the fire eating the hatch. At the ledger in his waistband. At the ten years between us, burning up just like the building.

I took his hand.

The moment I did, the roof under us groaned.

Then it gave out.