“No,” Tristan replied. “It’s not. I’ll write up my resignation.” He waited for it, waited for the sadness to come, but it didn’t. With everything else in their lives right now, losing this didn’t compare. Maybe it wouldn’t even if they weren’t dealing with their lives falling apart.

Money had always been stability to him, but now, that stability lay in Josiah and Mateo. He would find another job.

Larry shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”

“Don’t put this on me. We both know it’s what you want as well.” Tristan stood. Right now, the best way to describe his life, their lives, was a tornado, everything twisting and turning and coming at them at once. Josiah didn’t start that fire. They all knew it. But he also knew how the world worked. The right people didn’t always get punished, and the wrong sometimes did. And even if he didn’t, just dealing with the accusations and loss was enough for him.

That didn’t count Mateo, and what he would do if it came down to Josiah or Mateo.

Still, he traveled back to that day in the elevator, not being able to claim Mateo as his own. Hiding their relationship, moving, using Josiah’s name for reservations, the world not knowing that those two men were his...thinking about all of that, a weight released from inside him, making Tristan feel lighter.

“This won’t affect Mateo’s probation in any way. They won’t go harder on him because of me. Josiah didn’t do anything. I will protect what’s mine, Larry, and they both belong to me.”

Without another word, Tristan walked away, hoping like hell he did the right thing.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Mateo

No matter how bad things got in the past, Mateo always felt like he could reach Josiah. The night Jay got attacked, he’d been scared out of his fucking mind, lost, afraid, traumatized; yet Mateo had been able to reach him. Jay found his way out of the fog, wrapped his body around Mateo’s on the dirty-ass hotel floor, and they’d held each other. Grounded each other. Anchored each other.

Right now, he drifted without the goddamned anchor. He had Tristan tied to him, Tristan floating with him, but both of them were lost at sea because neither of them had Josiah’s light to guide them.

“You know we won’t let nothin’ happen to you, right, mi precioso?”

Josiah rolled over from his spot on the couch and looked up at Mateo. Looking at him, seeing him so close yet so far away, felt like a gaping hole in Teo’s chest. Like his heart was missing.

“I know... I just don’t understand why. Haven’t we been through enough?”

Jay didn’t get it. He never would. Mateo got how someone so good would have a hard time understanding how the world could be so fucked up. How bad shit could keep raining down on you no matter what you did.

Mateo opened his mouth to speak, but Josiah shook his head and continued. “I won’t let anything happen to you, either, Teo. You or Tristan. I shouldn’t have called that night. It’s going to come down on Tristan. I know what you have planned, and—”

The cell in Teo’s pocket rang, cutting Josiah off. It would be from New York. He couldn’t let it go, but he couldn’t talk in front of Josiah, either.

“Don’t. You don’t worry about us. You already take care of us. Where the fuck would we be without you?” Even with all the shit going on, they’d come a long way. Tristan working through shit with Elliot, and Mateo with Rhonda.

His phone rang again. “I gotta go. Tristan will be home soon. Te amo.”

The second Mateo stepped out of the apartment, he picked up the phone. “Hold on.”

Mateo didn’t say anything else, and neither did the person on the other end of the line. He took the elevator down, and walked outside and around the corner before he said, “Yeah.”

“What the fuck, man. You lost your manners since you ran, or what?” The voice on the other end of the phone said in Spanish.

Mateo replied in the same language, knowing it would continue that way. “Fuck you. What do you know?”

“See, that’s the thing, brother. You’re gonna owe me. You know I don’t do shit for nothing.”

Mateo’s muscles tensed in anger as bile tried to climb up his throat. He fucking knew it would come down to this. Was there really any other way? He always knew this shit wasn’t out of his life for good, but if it helped him take care of Josiah and Tristan, that’s all that mattered.

“Whatever you need.”

“I’ve looked up to your dad since I was a fuckin’ kid. You the same man he is? Ricky Sanchez always kept his word.”