Page 169 of The Final Cut

Delia pets Homer once, slow enough to steady her hand. “You can’t walk away from a cartel. You can change your name, your hair, your face, your country…it doesn’t matter. Someone hears something. Someone owes someone. Someone sees a picture on a phone in a bar. Someone gets paid more than they love you.”

Reva goes quiet.

Delia’s eyes are dry. Exhausted. Certain. “You would hide for the rest of your life. Every window. Every restaurant. Every school if you ever had children. Every hospital visit. Every person who smiled too long or stood too close. And Isabel would still keep reaching, because you living is an insult she cannot leave unanswered.”

My hand spreads over Reva’s stomach, holding her against the truth.

Delia looks at me then, her eyes sparking. “Deacon is right,” she says. “As much as I hate him for it.”

Shiloh’s expression softens in a way he hides by looking at the floor. Reva doesn’t move.

I press my mouth near her temple, not quite a kiss. “Disappearing only works when no one is hunting the idea of you.”

Her fingers close over my wrist, and she nods. Delia shifts Homer from her lap and stands.

The movement is careful because her knees are still injured, but her spine straightens inch by inch until the room changes around her. No crown. No pearls. No silk blouse or ceremonial chair. Borrowed sweatpants, bandaged wrists, bare feet on an expensive rug, and still, every inch of her looks like the thing Isabel spent fifteen years trying to build and failed to fully own.

A queen, whether she wants the word or not.

I always knew she would become one. I just hoped that it might happen in an easier, more deserving world.

Delia looks at Nash first. Then Ever. Then Shiloh. Then me.

Last, at Reva.

“What’s the plan?”

Reva’s hand tightens around my wrist again.

Nash’s mouth curves slightly, not with pleasure. With recognition. “We need information before we need bullets.”

“Then ask.”

Ever brings one laptop to the coffee table and turns it so Delia can see. “Structure. Names. Loyalties. Who stays loyal to Isabel if she looks weak?”

“Most of the old guard,” Delia says. “At first.”

“At first?” Shiloh asks.

“If they believe she can still punish them. Less if they believe someone with blood has already taken the room.”

Nash pulls a notebook from the table and opens it. “Who hates her?”

Delia’s laugh is soft and ugly. “Everyone.”

“That is not useful.”

“Well, it’s accurate.”

“Who hates her enough to act?”

Delia looks down at the blank page.

For the first time since standing, she seems to realize what she has chosen by asking for the plan. The old instincts move across her face. Caution. Calculation. The fear of speaking names aloud and making them real.

Reva slips off my lap. I let her go.

She crosses to her sister’s side, still pale, still wrecked around the eyes, but steadier now. She does not touch Delia. She only stands beside her and looks down at the same blank page.