#iwbss

Kiara’s hands rest on her husband’s back, admiring his frame but also massaging the stress out of his muscles. His head is slanted down towards his desk in their home office, focusing on the papers and maps in front of him.

“It’ll all still be here later, come back to the present,” she coaxed. 

Horacio’s just been made the head of the Search Bloc and his discipline to the post is admirable. It was a role he was made for, rising to the challenge from the very first day. It made Kiara proud. 

Nonetheless, it was getting late and she wanted nothing more than to spend some quality time with her husband. 

His neck rolled, releasing even more tension. His eyes looked to the ceiling and she could tell by the way that he leaned back into her touch that she had got him. His hands eventually peel back from their place pressed against the edges of the desk. 

Music could be faintly heard from the living room. Kiara had put in a cassette tape and had been dancing by her lonesome with a glass of wine until she decided she was tired of performing for an invisible audience. Entertaining her husband sounded so much more fun. 

His hand blindly reaches for her and she turns him around and lightly tugs on his arm. Horacio follows his wife out in the common area of the living room and smirks, knowing that she’s up to something. 

“You weren’t wearing that at dinner, mi amor.” 

“I was not,” she confirms with an innocent smile.

She wore spandex shorts and a cropped sweatshirt at dinner, her usual attire she changed into after getting home from a shift at the hospital. Now, she wore his white button down shirt that he had worn earlier to church. Underneath were black double-seam stockings and high-heel stilettos. 

When she pulls him closer, his hands find purchase around her waist while hers wrap around his neck. They sway together to the smooth harmonies of the song. He twirls her which garners a giggle and he takes her breath away when he dips her, holding onto her waist and raised leg. When they come back up together, they’re somehow closer than before. 

The sultry tones of the next song changes the ambience in the air immediately. Kiara’s eyes veer up into the eyes of her husband. Eyes that have already darkened. She pushes lightly into his chest, sending him towards the couch. 

“You’ve been working so hard lately, mi corazon,” Kiara expresses. She leans over him, leaving quaint kisses along his neck. Those kisses punctuate between her next words. “You. Deserve. A. Treat.” 

She can see his body continue to relax and unravel as he sinks further into the sofa. She stands upright again and begins swaying to the rhythm. Her hips careen while her hands dally over the fabric of his shirt that she’s wearing. It slowly leaves her shoulders and she can see Horacio’s eyes follow the slipping material. She holds onto it while lifting a leg onto his. She lets him grab on it, letting his hands slide over the nylon fibers of her stockings. And then removes her leg.

Kiara expects an annoyed scowl, but he merely chuckles. His expression is lit with amusement.

“You like to toy with me, hermosa.”

Without missing a beat, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sweetheart.”

She continues rolling her hips until she’s sitting low on the coffee table behind her. She raises her leg again and makes a show of removing the garter fastened onto her tights. When she throws it, he catches it without flinch or hesitation. His eyes don’t leave her as he balls the stocking up and tosses it to the side. She’s taking the other off now and kicking off her heels before rising back up.

Horacio’s hand twitches, jumpy with the need to touch his wife. His sigh is light and full of high spirits. His eyes are dark with arousal but also entrancement. It’s a look she sometimes catches him wearing, not privy to the fact that he sometimes finds himself aghast with her beauty. 

Kiara spins sensuously, jutting her ass towards him before allowing the white button to slip further from her frame. The straps of her black lacy bra become visible and she turns back to watch his eyes glued to every inch of skin she reveals. His hand rubs himself, finding limited room in his pants as his arousal grows.

The shirt drops to the floor and it’s taking everything for Horacio not to grab her up. Kiara turns back around and continues her strip show, playing with the straps of her bra. She smiles at him, allayed with how every ounce of stress has left his body. The only tension in his body seems to be centered within his pants. She’s enjoying tantalizing him, but grants a bit of mercy by stepping towards him and allowing him to touch her.

His hands immediately grab hold of her hips and she snickers with glee as she stumbles from his tight hold. He keeps her steady and their foreheads press against one another. 

Their lips finally meet after all the teasing and she’s powerless against their kiss. He always had a way of paralyzing her with his kisses, sending her to another universe. It’s a kiss that she loses herself in, unaware of how much time has passed. The demand for oxygen necessitates that they separate but their heated embrace is in no way paused. His hands explore everywhere he can touch. Kiara takes off the T-shirt that he’d been wearing since stripping out of his white button down from earlier. When they’re close together again, he can feel her nipples poke through the laced material of her bra.

Soon enough, Horacio’s taking down the straps and blindly reaching back to unclasp the flimsy material. She grinds against his thigh and even through the material of her matching black panties and his slacks, he feels her warmth.

He hums with pleasure with his lips returning first to her lips, but then to her neck, and finally down to her breasts. His tongue swirls around one of her nipples and she grinds further onto him. They work together to remove the rest of the garter and then her panties are the last to go.

He hisses, “You spoil me so much, querida.” 

“Always deserved,” Kiara responds. When she lifts up off him, she wastes no time dragging his slacks down and then boxer briefs. 

She’s too focused on getting back to his lips and receiving another one of those earth-shattering kisses that she yelps when she feels him cup her. His fingers are delicate as they explore her core, maneuvering with a proficiency that only he has. 

Kiara tugs on his lip when their kiss breaks again and she breaks out into a moan when he finds that sensitive bundle of nerves. Not wanting to be out done, her kisses are back to trailing down his body going lower and lower until her head is in his lap.

Throughout their time together, she’s found that there’s nothing quite like how she’s able to make him unravel in roils when she puts him in her mouth. At first, it’s tender kisses but pretty soon, she’s licking up and down his length, and finally taking him fully in one go.

His hisses and groans are a force of nature. There’s nothing like it for her. His left hand is grasping sweetly at her head, guiding her as she takes him further. His right hand finds hers and they clasp together as she continues forward. He’s ready to jump to the ceiling when he feels himself touch the back of her throat. 

“Mi amor, mi amor,” he mewls while pulling at her hair. She’s raising up at his insistence and can’t outrun the giggle as he grabs her up the way he’s wanted to all night and lifts her up off the couch. 

He utters between breaths, “What am I gonna do with you?”  

Kiara grinds on his erection, “You don’t know what’d you do without me.”

Her giggles fill their bedroom when he throws her onto the bed. He stares at her for a moment, taking in her words.

“I truly don’t, vida mía.” 

Their love echoes off the walls of their room for the rest of the night. Like always, it ends with Kiara feeling sated and adored and with Horacio grateful and astounded with her presence in his life.

PAST

There she was again. 

If Horacio was a man that believed in fate, he would feel there was something destined to take place between him and the young woman he found himself staring at outside the cafe. It had been another week since their last encounter at the park and now he was preparing to enter the cafe he usually relaxed at on Saturday afternoons. Except, he was now frozen in place outside when he spotted her sitting at a window seat, with a book in hand. It was only the potential embarrassment of looking like a stalker that made him open the door and walk in. 

Kiara was too engrossed in her book to even take stock of the quiet cafe’s door opening or the soft step of the man’s shoes as he wandered over to the register.

The barista already knew his order and rang up his coffee and dessert before getting everything together. Usually, he’d oblige the kind lady who ran the cafe and go ahead and sit at his usual spot, but he was rooted where he stood, wondering what he should do. 

She’d been on his mind all week, his attention flashing back to her in those quiet moments when he thought about her vibrancy. A spirited personality, one so bright that he had never encountered before. His own spirit was drawn to hers in ways that he couldn’t help.

Their short lived conversations were etches of dialogue that ran through his head everyday at multiple points throughout. Even now, as he grabbed his coffee and the arroz con leche that Señora Gómez refused to charge him for, he thinks back to their conversation in the park last week and how she wouldn’t let him apologize for not showing up at the bar when she invited him. 

How she instead asked him about his ribs, which were still sore. How she said she hoped he wouldn’t need to use her number for his injury and then winked. 

He was expecting hurt feelings or a testy attitude for standing her up and he was met with honey laughter and her phone number. He supposed being easy going was just in her nature, with the way she navigated the busy medical sphere during their first encounter. And then there was the fact she came from a background of moving around a lot if her stepfather’s United Nations post was any indication. 

Without dissuading his feet from the motion, he began moving towards her instead of settling at his usual corner on the opposite side of the little shop. She only looked up finally when he spoke.

“Is this seat taken?”

He was greeted with the brightest of smiles as she stood up, “Horacio!” 

She hugged him like they were old childhood friends and the soldier might have felt his heart rate halt. 

“Come on, sit! How are you?” 

They settled in their seats simultaneously, and Horacio felt his lips broaden.

“I see you’ve managed not to get yourself blown up again since the last time I saw you,” she noted with a teeth baring smile. 

He looked down with a muted grin.

“Those ribs haven’t been giving you much trouble, have they?” she inquired. 

“Not much, no,” He shook his head. And while he was still dealing with some soreness, he was very much on his way to healing completely. The bruises had faded and his scars were healing. Monday would be his first day back on duty.

“Good. I guess that explains why you haven’t called.” She wiggled her eyebrows playfully, having fun trying to tease him. He managed not to blush or stumble over his own tongue as he chuckled at her antics. He still wasn’t sure how or where he gathered the gall to ask her for her number in the first place. And, in that time since, it hadn’t occurred to him that he could simply pick up the phone and speak to her instead of allowing his thoughts to run wild with what she may be doing or what her life had been like up until now. He could just ask.

Kiara giggled into her coffee, “It’s fun making you squirm.”

Horacio shared her simper before looking down at her book. “I see you’re reading a modern classic.”

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” in its native Spanish was strewn across the square dining table, the pages turned downward with aged creases forming along its spine. 

The young nursing student nodded, “Yeah, kind of an old comfort book I go back to when I’m not interested in reading anything new.” 

“What’re your other favorites?” Horacio asked as he leaned back in his chair.

“Hm… Well, I know they’re children’s books, but I really love the Nancy Drew series. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Bluest Eye. Oh, and A World for Julius! Another modern classic, I think.”

He nodded his head, listening intently, taking in the titles he recognized and the ones he didn’t. He noted, “You’re an avid reader.” 

Kiara shrugged, “I mean, I don’t really get a lot of time to do so these days, but yeah, it’s a nice way to spend a lazy day.”

“I guess I should probably leave you to it, then,” he moved to stand, but she grabbed at his hand with the shake of her head. 

“Stay. I like the company.” 

Her hand lingered in his until he shifted back into his seat with a nod.

Their quiet afternoon continued with Kiara engrossed in her book and Horacio enjoying the serenity. Sometimes, Horacio would bring a book himself to read and other times, he’d just spend his time at the cafe, enjoying the quiet and taking in the lush, vibrant surroundings of this neighborhood. Señora Gómez brought over more coffee for them and switched the radio’s station from the cumbia music to a station that played more slowed down rock tracks from local indie bands. 

Once Kiara got to a stopping point at the end of a chapter, she looked up and put her book back down. 

“So, is this place a regular spot for you? Or do you like exploring different places like me?”

“It’s more of a staple for me. I’ve explored Bogota enough for this to be my favorite cafe.” 

Kiara looked at him, measuring him up, “Yeah, this seems like your vibe. Quiet, deep in the cut…”

The cafe was nestled in a little nook between larger buildings and on a less populated road, which might account for the little foot traffic the business drummed up. 

Horacio exchanged a questioning look and out of curiosity, asked, “What? It’s not really your vibe?”

She giggled at his mirroring of her lingo and the teasing glint in his eyes told her that he was purposefully mocking her, “Well, it’s definitely a vibe, but… If I wanted quiet, I’d just go to a library. I like hearing the hustle and bustle of life around me when I’m in a coffee shop.”

“Somehow, I don’t find that surprising at all,” he mused. 

“Really?” her eyebrows perked up, “figured you’d peg this girl as the small town type. Slow and breezy.”

“Your personality is way too big for the small town persona.”

She couldn’t hide her smile at that statement, but looked down nonetheless. The glint of Horacio’s watch caught her eye and she grabbed at his arm to confirm what time it was.

“Oh, shoot! I’ve gotta go, I’m supposed to be meeting with my brother.”

Kiara had shot out of her seat and Horacio slowly rose with her. He gleaned over her as she grabbed her book and stuffed it into her tote bag.

“The brother that works for Interpol, I presume.”

“The one and only!”

Time was moving so fast in just those few seconds and Horacio was panicking at the thought of this being his last chance at fate. What if he never saw her again? What if their paths never again crossed? Sure, he had her number, but what reason would he have to contact her now that he was mostly healed? 

“Would you mind if I came along with you?” 

The words were tossed out before his tongue could reel them back in.

Confusion colored Kiara’s features, “To meet my brother?”

“Yes, that explosion the other week was carried out by international traffickers. We’ve been trying to find a link to which other countries they have reach in. Perhaps, your brother has some intel that might help give us a lead.”

It’s not that everything he just spewed out of his mouth was untrue. It actually was. But Horacio was a soldier. He may be involved with drug interdiction cases but more so as muscle. In a tactical role. Gathering intelligence and putting together cases was out of his wheelhouse and thus not really something he should be concerning himself with. He winced internally at his request and was about to open his mouth to retract before Kiara beat him to the punch.

“Oh!” she said in understanding, “Yeah, no problem!”

She put her tote bag over her shoulder and led the way outside. She looked back once they were outside, “I actually walked here…”

“We can take my car.” 

Once they settled into the Jeep Laredo, Kiara looked over at him and smiled, “I don’t know why, but this just fits you.” 

She patted the passenger seat as she spoke.

“Oh, it seems like my ‘vibe’?”

Kiara cracked up and retorted, “Okay, if you’re gonna steal my lingo, that means you have to teach me some Colombian idioms or something.”

He looked over at her briefly with a teasing smile before returning his eyes to the cobble-stoned road, “It’s a promise.”

*********

“We’ve been following some known figure heads mainly and trying to keep track of any peculiar communication, but nothing’s really stuck. We didn’t even get any kind of prior warning about the runners getting spooked from you guys moving in on them,” Laz explained.

The trio was standing in a shaded portion of the same park that Horacio and Kiara met in the other week. Once Kiara introduced the two of them, she’d let them take over the conversation with just a slight prod at Laz to give any helpful info to Horacio straight. 

“What about any noise being made afterwards? Only a few of them were arrested at the scene and they were all foot soldiers.”

Laz shrugged, “These guys are good. That’s why they’ve been able to evade capture in whatever country they pop up in. It’s like whack-a-mole. Knock ‘em down in one place, eventually they turn up somewhere else. Honestly, I don’t even think they’ll be much of a problem for you moving forward because they’re not intent on getting caught up twice.”

Maybe it should’ve, but it didn’t give Horacio much comfort. He didn’t want them to no longer be a problem because they retreated into the darkness. He wanted them to no longer be a problem because they were brought into the light for justice to be carried out. For them to be expelled out from the places they sought refuge in his land. 

Still though, he nodded in appreciation at Laz and then at Kiara. Though he was grateful for the information, his main reason for coming here was simply because he wasn’t ready to be away from this vibrant being that had somehow caught his eye. And now it was time to leave. 

“Thank you,” he spoke to Laz before taking a step back, “I guess I should leave you two. I enjoyed the coffee with you,” he admitted, looking expressly at Kiara.

She smiled brightly, “Ditto.” 

She saw him begin to turn away and her face paused for a minute. Without another thought, she called him back.

“Come back to the hospital on Monday to get your lungs checked. We’ll see if you were telling the truth about doing those breathing exercises I told you about.”

Horacio nodded once again, internally beaming at another chance to be in her stratosphere. 

“Si, señorita.” 

Kiara watched him walk away and head towards his Jeep. Laz watched between the two of them with a curious eye and smirked at his little sister.

“I didn’t know you were dating.”

Her head snapped to him with widened eyes, “I’m not!” 

Laz’s face morphed into a “really?” expression before she put her hands up in defense with a laugh.

“I’m not! I’m serious. We’re just friends. ….If that. I treated him at the hospital.”

Her older brother nearly hummed but said nothing further. 

*****

Horacio did indeed show up at the hospital’s emergency room on Monday. There was a rare slow dull to her shift and she had just returned to the nurse’s station from a coffee break when a coworker nodded her head towards someone. 

Kiara followed the nudge and saw him standing awkwardly in the hallway.

“He asked for you.”

Her smile lit up as she traipsed over to where he stood. 

“Capitán Carrillo…” 

“Enfemera Nash..”

“Estudiante, técnicamente,” she corrected.

He nodded his head side to side in a playful manner that reflected “neither here nor there” but only hummed in his verbal response. 

“Shall we?” She gestured towards a small room that he turned around and led her into before sitting in the sole chair of the examination room. At her silent bequest, he took his shirt off.

The bruisings were now tinges of fading yellows compared to the dark splotches of purple that were spread over his frame these past couple of weeks. She softly palpated her fingers along the tender pigmentations, and found that they were no longer sensitive to her touch. There was still some swelling on his right side where the broken ribs were, but the skin was less elevated than before. His ribs were on track to being almost completely healed.

She listened to his heart and lungs and found a strong heartbeat and clear airways. 

“Well, it looks like you’ve been following orders,” she noted as she placed the stethoscope back around her neck.

“Provocations of being a soldier.”

She smiled at his comment and gestured with her head for him to stand up, “Let’s just do a few exercises so I can check on your range of motion.”

He followed along with her directions, moving whichever way she directed and answering her questions truthfully.

“My brother called. Asked if there was anything else he could do to help… He was a little disappointed he couldn’t give you a lot to go on.”

He nodded in acknowledgement of her statement as he shrugged his shoulders against her resistance. 

“It’s fine. To be truthful, I knew to be expecting a miracle,” he sighed his own regret, “It’s just beginning to get frustrating, that’s all. To constantly feel behind the curve.”

Kiara could hear the tiredness in his voice. She hummed her sympathy, “I’m sorry. I’m sure you’re doing everything you can do.”

“That’s just it. It used to be enough. I used to think I was doing everything I could do. Now, I’m not so sure.”

She gleaned the weariness in his features and asked softly, “You holding up okay?”

Almost like he was just caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he shook his head, washing the exhaustion off his face and replacing it with a placating smile.

“Yeah… yeah.”

He looked back at her, his narrowed eyes wondering how much she could see through him. The face she wore was one of indifference but there was something in the way that she studied him. Something that told him she knew more than she let on. He wasn’t sure what he appreciated more in that moment: the fact that she could see the inner turmoils in his head or the fact that her raised eyebrow told him that she knew he knew that she could see the pensiveness in him.

He looked down when she took two steps back from him, finished with testing his strength and range of motion.

“All done,” she announced as she handed him back his shirt and then went to the sink to wash her hands. When she walked back towards him, he was still standing in the same spot, now fully clothed.

He looked at her, breathing relaxed breaths, but unable to voice what he was looking for right now. 

But still…

She knew.

“You can be doing everything right and it’s still not enough. Maybe, take that as a chance to figure out what “enough” means to you.”

She shrugged her shoulders and turned towards the door, “At least, that’s what I have to do when I feel like I’m at a fork in the road.” 

“And what do you do from there?” He asked, willing her to stay in the room with him for just a few more seconds.

She turns back and smiles. 

“There’s only two directions you can go. You take the one that feels right and pray to God you’re fast enough to turn back around if you’re wrong as shit.”

______

PRESENT

“I just needed to hear your voice.”

Horacio sat there momentarily stunned at the sound of his ex-wife’s voice. He never thought he’d hear from her again and several emotions pulsed through him as he processed her voice. 

There’d been so many times over the past two months that he wanted to call her. It’d been the longest they’d gone without hearing from each other and it felt like a piece of him was rotting the longer time went on. Now, it felt like those miniscule pieces of his soul were floating back to his core. And his heart warmed because if she was calling, maybe she was going through the same emotions. The racing impulses just to hear each other. Thirty seconds into answering the phone and he could already feel so much stress from his everyday life lifting. 

“Horacio? …Are you there?”

She brought him back into focus from the airiness that had short-circuited his brain. A swelling of air entered his lungs as he heaved a deep breath, still savoring the peace that was calming him. 

“I’m here, Kiara,” he finally said. He heard a relieved sigh from her end and he wasn’t sure if it came from the fact that he hadn’t hung up on her or maybe she was experiencing the same sort of bliss that was now hovering around him.

“How -uh… How are you?” 

He closed his eyes, always hating when he could hear tentativeness coming from the voice of one of the most confident people he knew. He never used to hear her sound like that whenever she spoke to him. And now it was etched into every word she spoke. He knew he was the cause of it and it burned him up inside. 

“I’m…” He paused, wondering what the best course of action was here. Should he be honest? Tell her that he’s been struggling internally ever since their last phone call? Tell her that he always envisioned ridding his country of one of the most notorious malefactors as one of his greatest purposes and he never expected to feel so empty afterwards? Or does he tell her that he’s perfectly fine? That life goes on and he’s riding the waves of it in stride? 

He settles for, “I’m hanging in there.” 

There was silence over the line. Neither of them knew where to go next. How to even hold a conversation with someone you were used to having thousands of conversations with for over a decade. He didn’t know what she wanted from this conversation, considering she called, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted from their call either.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m sorry for just calling out of the blue.”

Their voices were mended together as the words left their mouth at the same time. 

More silence as the other person’s words sunk in.

“Sorry,” he chuckled apologetically. 

“It’s okay,” he could hear the smile in her voice and it filled him with so much warmth.

She spoke again, “I’m sorry I called you. I know you said we shouldn’t talk anymore, I just-”

 “Kiara,” He interrupted her with a soft sigh, “It’s okay. If I’m being honest, I’ve thought a lot about calling you over the past few weeks. It’s good to hear from you.”

“Really?”

The pang of shock in her voice sent aches to his chest. This never should’ve happened. They never should have fallen this far apart. 

“Really,” he echoed, “How is it over there? Is it everything you wanted?”

He hadn’t meant for his tone to come across so sorrowful. She stayed quiet on the other end and hoped that he hadn’t brought up their shared sense of resentment. The words had slipped out so easily from behind his mental guard rail. Almost like he was searching for some sort of comfort in this anguish. And her living out her dreams was probably the single piece of solace he’d find in this. 

“I never meant for this to ruin us, Horacio.”

She hadn’t answered the question. Perhaps to spare his feelings, he thought. To not throw in his face that she was living the life that she wanted and it was without him.

“I know,” he whispered. 

And for a few instances, all that could be heard was the sound of their breathing.

He finally worked up the nerve to ask, “Why did you call?”

“I just needed to hear your voice,” she parroted her earlier statement. 

He didn’t know what to do with that or how to even respond. 

“I should let you go… I’ve taken up enough of your time.” 

Her voice had gone from laced with emotion to clear and more formal. The resonant voice she’d use in the clinical setting when dealing with patients. She was speaking to him like a patient, very much unlike all the times he actually was her patient.

“Wait, Kiara-”

Maybe he just needed to hear her voice, too. And he wasn’t ready to let go of it. Maybe she had it right and it was time for them to get off the phone, but he couldn’t let go. Not when he was unsure when the next time they spoke would be. Not when he was unsure whether they’d ever speak again.

“Why were you calling me from a different number? It’s unlisted, did you move?”

He heard her pause. It was a simple question, one that should’ve yielded a simple response.

“Was it because you thought I wouldn’t answer if I saw your number?” He guessed when she wasn’t fast enough to provide an answer herself, “Because I would’ve answered if you called. I’d always answer, Kiara.”

“I have to go, Horacio, I’m sorry.” 

He frowned, unsure of why she was apologizing. She was slipping away. There wasn’t enough time. He wasn’t ready. 

“Stay safe, okay?” She spoke with urgency. With desperation. “Please stay safe.”

“You too,” he spoke strongly, conveying the brawn of being a colonel but the tenderness of a husband. He hoped either or both brought her comfort.

“Goodbye, Horacio.”

She’d hung up before he got the chance to wish her the same. He placed the phone back on its hook and frowned, feeling unnerved. The entire conversation left him feeling conflicted throughout. But even still, he could’ve stayed on the phone with her for hours. If just to hear her breathing. She needed to hear his voice and somehow she knew he sought the same. Still, the call ended much too abruptly for his taste and it left him feeling the confused disorientation after waking up from a hangover. He pressed his palms against his sinuses and forehead, uneasiness flaring up as he combed over their conversation. He could’ve never imagined that speaking to Kiara for the first time in months would’ve left him feeling so lost and perplexed.

________

“Dammit!” Laz muttered under his breath as he finished listening to his voicemail, slamming the phone back into its receiver. Confused and concerned glances from his co-workers floated around the room as they took in their disgruntled colleague. No one knew why he had been exhibiting gradual unease as the days went by and no one was sure they wanted to enter his path of irritation. Their caseload at Interpol was slow right now and that usually indicated a jovial work environment. But there was nothing but silent tension aerating over the space as the man laid a heavy fist down on his desk.

“What the hell is going on?” 

He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, willing his mind to make sense of what seemed so fuzzy right now.

Nothing made sense and it pissed him off to no end.

It also didn’t help that he couldn’t get the image of his ex-brother in law with a woman inside his house outside of his head. He should’ve known better than to believe all the shit Pena was spewing about Horacio being broken up and barely able to function without Kiara. The DEA agent stood in front of him and lied about how the head of the Search Bloc had been struggling all this time when clearly that wasn’t the case. And of course, he fucking bought it. Bought it enough to pull up to the house that Kiara used to live in and seek out Horacio to let him know what was going on. Oh, what a surprise it was to walk in on what he walked in on. Horacio Carrillo doing just fine without Kiara.

He leaned back in his seat behind his desk and scoffed. Still in disbelief at the sight that had met his eyes when he was at the man’s door. Another woman in the home that he shared with his wife. With Laz’s sister. The home Horacio had let Kiara pick because he declared that all he needed was a bed and a shower. The home where she learned how to juice fresh fruits after discovering passion fruit vines in the backyard. The home where they conceived and then lost their child. All of these memories forged, for better and for worse in that house, and they meant not a damn thing to Horacio. Seeing Horacio and that woman so comfortable in the home that used to be Kiara's, it made Laz sick. And so incredibly angry.

As far as Laz was concerned, Kiara had just left. And everyday, he was pissed at her for just up and abandoning him, but he also just missed her so much to the point where it felt like he was mourning her as if she’d died. He was desperate for her to come back home. He thought he shared that sentiment with Horacio, the one commonality they had. And obviously he could see he’d been very wrong in thinking that. He wanted to believe that his sister was the love of Horacio’s life, but it never seemed to ring true. At least, since she left. Laz had only had small glimpses of the man since she left and he was always the hardened, cold colonel in every one of those instances. 

Laz blew out another deep breath and lifted his head to the ceiling. He shook his head at himself, knowing that was his anger talking. The man always walked around like he had a stick up his ass. That was true, even when he was with Kiara. But he could see when Kiara would pull back her husband’s layers and melt some of the man’s coldness away. How she would run to him and make him pick her up ever since the Dirty Dancing movie came out. How Horacio would listen to her rant about something trivial and respond with an amused, muted “Yes, dear” whenever she asked if he agreed. Laz knew the love was there when they were together. He was foolish to deny otherwise. But he just couldn’t understand how it all went to shit. How they went from that to this. Her in an entirely different country and him with another woman in their house.

If he learned anything from today, it was that he’d be on his own when it came to finding Kiara. He couldn’t rely on Horacio’s help or anyone’s really. It was up to him to figure out what was going on.

No one in the shared office space had uttered a word to the emotionally volatile Interpol agent but weary eyes exchanged silent messages of concern across the room. Laz paid them no mind until one of them hesitantly made his way to Laz’s desk.

“Everything okay, Laz?” 

He looked up and could tell that even though most heads were down into their work, they were, more than likely, eavesdropping.

“I’m good,” he nodded his head with a smile he didn’t even bother to make real, “Just need to talk to the boss man, y’all have a good night.”

He rose up from his seat and walked down the hall to the office of his boss, giving a salute to the rest of his colleagues in doing so. The office door was open and he peeked in before knocking. 

Michael Luna was the head agent in charge in the Colombian division of Interpol and his head was currently deep in a stack of files, pen in hand, marking important notes in the margins. 

He looked up at the sound of Laz knocking and gestured for the man to come in.

“Got a second?”

Luna nodded, still holding his pen in hand, “What do you need, Laz?”

“I need your help.”

“With what?”

“My sister.”

___________________

It was so scorching that Horacio had only been outside in the sun for a few minutes before sweat began to drip down the side of his face. He’d been outside since he was leading a drill with a collective of young officers, making sure they were maintaining the physical rigor that came with their posts.

That wasn’t really in his job description anymore since he’d reached the rank of colonel, which was why his drill this morning had raised a few eyebrows. 

Trujillo exchanged an expression of concern with Peña before walking over to him after Carrillo had left for outside to start the drill.

“His sudden change in demeanor got anything to do with you know who?”

Peña rolled his eyes, “She’s not Satan, Trujillo, you can say her name.” 

Trujillo raised his hands up in defense. Still though, Peña answered, “I don’t know.” 

Meanwhile, outside, Horacio paced in front of the officers, watching them sharply as they carried out the drill. 

“Colonel Carrillo!” A voice belonging to one of the guards at the front gate sounded off, “There’s someone at the front gate, Interpol agents. They’re asking for you.”

Horacio looked behind the front gate guard and saw another guard escorting Laz and another Interpol agent towards him.

The colonel looked to his officers and ordered, “Tomar un descanso.”

As he turned back towards his guests, tension filled his shoulders, uneasiness settling within him the closer he walked towards them. It didn’t help that he knew there were prying eyes probably trying to decipher what was going on.

“Colonel.” The unfamiliar man spoke. With a sharp eye from their superior, the front gate guards walked back towards their post. Carrillo looked back at the weathered agent and took the hand that he offered to shake. He could see that Laz was avoiding his gaze and so he chose not to address him. It’d been a week since he showed up at the house and stormed out shortly thereafter. Carrillo hadn’t heard from him since, but he figured whatever he came to discuss that day was why he was here now.

“I’m Michael Luna, I work over at Interpol with Laz, who you know,” he spoke smoothly with a lilt of knowing both in his voice and also the rise of his eyebrow, “We need to ask you a few things, it won’t take long.”

With a sigh, Horacio did a brief glance around and called out to a nearby soldier and instructed him to complete the drill.

He, then, led the way towards his office, sparing a brief glance at Laz as the duo followed him. On the way to their destination, he also caught brief looks of confusion from Trujillo and Peña as they stood talking near Peña’s desk. He noticed that Peña’s stare wasn’t directed at him actually, but towards Laz. If Horacio had looked back, he might’ve caught the subtle, silent bit of communication exchanged between them.

Letting them enter his office before them, he closed the door and took a seat behind his desk. Looking back at him, Laz’s face held barely bridled anger while Luna’s was more inquisitive. 

After a few seconds of silence, Horacio finally asked, “What did you need to talk to me about?”

Luna looked to Laz, almost expectantly, with the colonel’s eyes flickering impatiently between the two.

“Is this about a case? About any relevant intelligence?” His clipped tone hit the air.

Laz still said nothing, only heaving a deep breath with his bitter eyes still aimed at his ex brother-in-law.

“No, this isn’t about a case,” Luna finally spoke. His eyes had veered back to Horacio as he leaned back in his chair, “When was the last time you heard from your ex-wife?”

Horacio’s eyebrows immediately furrowed. His gaze shot right back to Laz and then to Luna, confused and troubled that neither were giving much of an explanation for their presence. 

“Why are you asking me about Kiara?” 

Luna merely shrugged. 

“Just answer the question, Carrillo,” The animosity in Laz’s voice wasn’t to be missed, especially because they were the first words he had asserted since stepping on the Carlos Hoguin grounds. 

“This is why you came to talk to me last week?” Horacio inquired, but Laz gave him nothing. Alarmed at the bringing up of her name, he persisted, “Is something wrong? Is she okay?” 

The hardened exterior Laz was used to had faltered and he could see genuine inklings of fear spark across Horacio’s face. Still though, Laz remained silent. 

“Dammit Lazaro, is Kiara the reason you came to see me?!” Carrillo’s voice rose with every word, as did he. He went from sitting straight in his seat to towering over the two men behind his desk. 

Laz blinked and gave a simple, “Yes.”

The one word reply only upset Carrillo further.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me that? Why do you need to know whether I’ve heard from her?” Still angered, there was shakiness in his intonations, some of that underlying fear coming to the surface. 

And just because he was an asshole, Laz shrugged. He shrugged and it took everything for Carrillo not to reach across his desk and throttle him.

“Didn’t think you’d care, considering you were preoccupied.”

And because Luna was worried that Carrillo might actually come across the desk, he jumped in, “That’s enough.”

He looked at Carrillo and intoned calmly, “We need to know if you’ve heard from her, Colonel.” 

Last week’s conversation with Kiara whirled around in Horacio’s mind. Had something happened in the time since he spoke to her? Was something wrong when he spoke to her? The call was peculiar on its own, but he tried wracking his mind, looking for any irregularity that might signal that she was in danger. 

He could see the animosity in Laz’s eyes, still, and he knew that whatever answer he gave them, they’d walk away and leave without giving him any kind of explanation if it didn’t help with whatever they were trying to accomplish.

“Please just tell me why you need to know. Is she okay? Is she in danger?”

His voice had softened considerably, his guard slowly chipping away.

Laz stood up and looked him dead in the face, “That doesn’t concern you anymore.” Looking at Luna, he said, “He doesn’t know shit. Waste of fucking time…”

If he had been paying attention, he might’ve been able to dodge the vicious punch Horacio landed across his cheek. “Not my concern?!” He grabbed the collar of Laz’s shirt pulling him across the desk, “You know if it involves her, it will always concern me!”

It wasn’t Luna getting in between them that finally swooped Horacio out of his vehement turmoil, but the sound of knocking on his office door and Sandra appearing from behind it.

“Colonel?”

She hadn’t realized the tense situation she just walked into and stood posted at the door, taking in the three sets of eyes that were now on her.

Laz’s eyes were the first to shift off her, turning back towards Carrillo, “That right there, Carrillo,” he said with his finger pointing towards Sandra. “That right there is why she doesn’t concern you anymore.”

The older Nash sibling didn’t wait for a response, but merely turned his back to Carrillo.

“Nash-” 

“I don’t have time for this shit!” He threw back over his shoulder, heading for the door.

Horacio stalked after him, reaching his arm before he could get to the door. Laz whirled back in anger and snatched his arm out of the colonel’s grasp. He was met with mutual fury as his ex-brother-in-law stood eye to eye with him. There was a brief instant of silence before the door opened further and Peña appeared behind Sandra. His irked face indicated that their sparring had bounced off into the halls of the building.

Laz looked back and forth between Peña and Carrillo before shaking his head. 

“Fucking pathetic…” he muttered.

“You don’t get to decide whether I care enough about her or not. No matter what happened between she and I, I deserve to know whether something has happened to her.”

Laz’s nose flared, “I think you lost that right the moment you started bringing girls over to the house you bought with your wife.”

“For fuck’s sake, Nash, she’s under a protection detail!”

Continuing on as if hearing nothing Carrillo said, Laz threw back, “Peña was talking all that bullshit about how my sister leaving destroyed you and come to find out, you’re busy playing Secret Service with the secretary.”

Another savage punch landed on Laz’s cheek, but this time, he anticipated the hit enough to lunge at him right afterwards. 

Peña uttered an irritated “Jesus Christ” before pushing Carrillo all the way back until they reached his desk. Luna shook his head with an admonishing glare while shoving Laz towards the opposite direction.

When he asked “You good?” to the agent under his command, it wasn’t so much out of concern as it was a cautionary “Get your fucking act together.”

Laz nodded his head, bending it down in deference.

“Let’s go,” Luna commanded in his soft tone.

“You know how much I care about your sister, Laz.” He turned back towards Carrillo. “There’s not a thing in this world that will ever change the way I feel about her.” 

And what Laz was met with, was not the animosity he’d been greeted with for the past few months, but despair. Despair and loss.

This time, Laz had nothing to say back.

Horacio looked down in his anguish, not able to withstand the looks of pity etched in everyone’s faces as they saw him in a flash of vulnerability.

“Get out,” he said softly, to no one in particular but also to everyone.

Though closest to the door, Sandra was the last one out, hesitating until she felt a pull of her sleeve.

Peña could see in her expression that she wanted to check on Carrillo. He knew she meant well, but it was the last thing the man needed right now.

He sighed and uttered, "Don't. He needs to be alone right now."

And maybe that was the next best thing he needed right now. But what he really needed?  Kiara.

*****

EEEEKK. Can't believe it's been so long since I last updated this. Especially when they're always heavy on my mind. Also, I hope y'all don't mind that I add OCs to my fics. I'm just a sucker for building relationships and creating a little universe inside a narrative that's already so immersive. Each piece I write is its own little metaverse and I like putting more ppl in it whenever the inspo strikes. Marcus Alvarez was my inspo for Michael Luna in the sense that he's got that same calm, hardened exterior that commands respect. If you're ever interested in hearing me drone on about my OCs, however little they may appear, pls hit up my inbox and let me babble on and on lol

Interested to hear y'all thoughts on this chapter! Next chapter picks up right where we left off and of course, another flashback to their beginning!

“It’s about Kiara.”

A lump formed in Peña’s throat at the words being voiced over the phone. He glanced around the hallway, confirming that there was no one else around before continuing the conversation.

“Peña, you there?”

Javier cleared his throat before putting his mouth back to the phone, “Yeah.”

“Is this a bad time? I can-”

“No, no, it’s okay.” He sat down in his chair right as Carrillo came out of his office. The two made eye contact and the colonel raised his eyebrows with questioning in his expression. 

“Thought you said there were tapes to look over.” 

“Yeah, Murphy’s getting it all set up. Just got to take care of this call and I’ll be there in a few.” Peña gestured toward his phone as he explained. Carrillo gave him a nod, albeit with slight annoyance, before going to join Murphy. 

“Was that Carrillo?”

“Yeah,” Peña answered as he hunched over in his seat, “There a reason you call me and not him?”

“Because that conversation would probably go nowhere. I think the only person he might hate more than me is Ki.” 

Laz’s tone was bitter as he harped on the broken relationship between his sister and her now ex-husband. At this, Peña blew a breath out.

“You know he doesn’t hate her. If he did, this wouldn’t be affecting him the way it is.” 

He’s not sure why he finds himself defending Carrillo when he knows that the man is much of the reason why Laz isn’t having whatever this conversation is with his brother-in-law. 

“Anyway, you wanted to talk about Kiara?”

“Yeah. I know this is a long shot, but I wouldn’t have called if this wasn’t important.” Peña’s interest in the call had been piqued since Laz’s greetings words. He listened carefully as Laz continued, “I just wanted to know if you happened to hear from her recently.”

Peña furrowed at his words. He hadn’t seen or heard from Kiara ever since she left. And he would think that Laz would know that. 

“Or do you know if Carrillo’s heard from her at all?” Laz inquired after the short bout of silence following his first question.

“The last time I saw her was when she was still living in this country. So no, I haven’t. And I don’t know the last time Carrillo’s heard from her, I imagine it’s been a while.” 

“Do you know if anyone’s heard from her? Maybe Connie? Or any of the nurses from the clinic?” 

“I don’t know, Laz, but I highly doubt it. She left like a bat out of hell and never looked back. Carrillo would be the only one she's talked to and I couldn’t tell you the last time that may have been.” Peña didn’t necessarily mean for the frustration to come out in his words, but he was becoming increasingly annoyed at being on the opposite end of the questioning. With his job, usually, he was the one digging for information.

“You mind asking Carrillo when he spoke to her last?”

“Laz-”

“It’s important, Javi.” The sudden urgency caught Peña off guard. He remained silent, waiting to see if Laz would elaborate. Only quiet prevailed and the nature of this call began to unsettle the DEA agent.

“What’s going on, Laz? Why are you asking if anyone’s heard from Kiara?”

He heard a deep breath being inhaled over the line and he became even more puzzled at the skittishness and hesitance exuding off the older Nash sibling.

“Nothing’s going on. I was just asking,” Laz provided lamely.

This time, it was Peña’s turn to pause, but more so out of skepticism, “I don’t believe that for a second, Laz.”

“Just let me know if Carrillo’s heard from her. I gotta go, bye.”

“Laz-” Fuck. The call had dropped before Peña was able to get another word in. He banged the phone back on its hook and huffed out a jilted sigh.

His hands braced his desk as several hundred thoughts raced through his head. Something was obviously going on, that much he was sure of. The scatterbrained insistence of the Interpol agent brought forth alarms in Peña’s head. It was already out of the blue for him to have been randomly calling in the first place. But the elusive questions about his sister and the persistence with which he pressed for Peña to ask Carrillo about her was odd at best. Off-putting at worst. 

************

Peña rubbed his bleary eyes as he prepared to go home for the night. The better part of the day was spent going over surveillance tapes and weaving out potential intelligence on the whereabouts of some of Escobar’s associates. Most of the hard work had been done, sure, but it would take time to thoroughly erase the drugpin’s hold on Medellin.

He needed sleep. And he was intent on getting it. But first, he had some snooping to do.

Carrillo was back in his office by now, leaving Peña and Murphy to continue their own work as he returned to finish his own. The agent’s previous conversation with Laz had creeped back into the forefront of his brain and it was the stimulus that powered his steps toward the colonel’s quarters. Admittedly, he didn’t know exactly what to say or how to approach the conversation.

As much as he tried to hide it, Peña had seen the damage done in Kiara’s self-exile. The topic was a sensitive one, very rarely brought up unless someone was purposely looking to antagonize the head of the Search Bloc. 

Couth wasn’t exactly Peña’s strong suit, but as he was walking to Carrillo’s office, he decided he would use a little discretion and tact when he somehow circled the conversation to Kiara. He wanted actual answers after all. Bringing up Laz would surely not get him anywhere and being as shifty as the man sounded on the phone would also not do anything but instill the same unease in Carrillo that had arisen in Peña. 

So he would just play it by ear. Engage in casual conversation, see where Carrillo’s head’s at, and get the intel that was requested of him.

Carrillo sat at his desk, poring over the details of an upcoming raid, working to perfect the game plan from every angle to eliminate risk and blood.

A day in which his mind was especially heavy over the thoughts of her, his eyes couldn’t help but to travel over to the picture of her that still sat at his desk. It was another memory of her he couldn’t get rid of. She was beaming at the camera in her green floral print dress, holding a cup of sugar cane juice. It was outdoors at their house where they were celebrating the purchase of their first home. It was weeks after they had moved in, but the house had finally come together in its decor and hominess. They held a small, informal gathering in the back after she had spent the whole day in the kitchen cooking for everyone. He took the picture of her as she was dazzling with radiance as the sun rays beamed on behind her.

Whenever he needed solace or to be placated, all he had to was take a pause and look at the picture. It blanched in comparison to the comfort of her hands massaging her shoulders or the succor of her lying in his arms, but it was all he had to get by.

He rattled out of his thoughts when he realized that the reason he couldn’t have any of those things was because she was so far away from him. Because she left him. And he wished the anger overpowered the anguish, when really it was just a useless device that did nothing to balm his distress.

His office phone buzzed and the caller ID yielded him no help as to who was calling. 

“Hello?”

He was met with silence. The light breathing indicated there was someone, indeed, on the line, but no words fell through.

“Hello?” he tried again.

His mind wandered to the previous phone call at his home, “You were looking for me,” he noted, “Is there something I can help you with?”

Horacio almost expected a threat of some kind to come through. He didn’t necessarily feel alarmed, but the random calls two days in a row were absolutely not a coincidence and he was curious as to who this person was. In his mind, an actual threat would have been less of a surprise. 

He opened his mouth to try again, but was cut off by the sound of rapping on his office door.

“Come in,” he prompted. He waved Peña in and hung the phone up upon the dial tone meeting his ear. 

“You got a minute?” Peña asked.

“Yes, what is it?”

Peña shrugged, masking his impending inquisitiveness with lax curiosity. “Just wanted to make sure you were doing fine, man. Even after Escobar, it’s been a rough past few weeks.”

Carrillo nodded with his head sinking back down into his work, “I’m fine.” 

Fuck it. There was really no subtle way to bring her up. And besides, being as blunt as possible might throw the colonel off a little bit. Enough for Peña to possibly gauge a genuine reaction out of him. 

“Have you heard from Kiara at all?”

The man’s head snapped up at the mention of her name. The implacability of his face gave no indication of the man’s emotions. There were a few seconds of silence before Horacio spoke, “Not since we signed the papers. Why?”

Peña shrugged again, bumbling back into neutrality, not wanting to get his head bit off. He was treading into dangerous waters without knowing how to navigate. “No reason, just figured with how shitty things have been, you might have wanted to call her.”

Carrillo’s face still gave nothing away but his words gave way to etchings of defensiveness, “I haven’t heard from her. And I don’t expect to hear anything from her.”

“Well, it couldn’t hurt to reach out.” At this, Javier was fixed with a hard glare from the colonel. Immediately, he raised his hands up in defense, “Sorry. I just… You were a part of each other’s lives for so long. It wouldn’t hurt, y’know? To reach out, to see how she’s doing.”

While his glare lessened, the man had still remained silent. It was always hard to decipher what might be going on in the man’s head and this scenario was no exception. And maybe that’s what made the next words out of his mouth so surprising to the DEA agent.

“She doesn’t want to hear from me.” His voice was sullen as he said the words. “Our last conversation did not end well.”

A beat passed. And Javi figured he might as well ask.

“What happened?”

Horacio sighed, “I called her about the divorce papers. Told her I would get them all sorted out, but… She thought that maybe we were rushing things. I said things. Things that I regret.”

“Wait, so she didn’t want to sign the papers?”

Carrillo found himself confiding in Peña, unsure of when and where they got to this point in their relationship where he could be so vulnerable. Or maybe he was just the only person who didn't have the grounds nor desire to judge him. 

“She wanted more time, she was unsure. I said no. Admittedly, in maybe the worst way possible.”

He looked down just like he did whenever he recalled that fated conversation. It always filled him with shame and embarrassment as he thought of that encounter. Never did he before wish that he could take back his words. 

“After we signed, I told her it was best that we no longer speak. For her safety, sure, but also…” 

He shook his head and wished that if he shook hard enough, the memories of that encounter would erase itself. They hadn’t spoken since that conversation. That was two months ago. Escobar was gone. The worst was mostly over. And that only filled him with even more time to digest his words. And the heavy guilt that he carried from spewing them.

Peña watched Carrillo while he also worked through digesting that piece of information himself. A split was a split. Even the cleanest of splits probably had some discord. But he hadn’t realized their split wasn’t as amicable as it initially seemed. Up until now, Peña thought that they were on way better terms than they actually were. He figured they weren’t buddy-buddy, much less on the tracks to potentially reconcile, but this was far off from what he imagined. It wasn’t even a matter of being on good terms or bad terms. They weren’t on any terms. They had no communication.

“Do you, uh- Do you happen to know why she might’ve been dragging her feet?”

Had she been hoping for a reconciliation? Was she thinking of coming back?

“No, I don’t. She didn’t say why.” I didn’t let her say why, Horacio thought. He’d never given her the chance to voice her thoughts before cruelly unleashing his brutal words.

“I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know all that.”

Horacio gave a small, imperceptible nod, but said nothing more on the matter. His eyes were back down onto his desk as they haphazardly scanned over the scattered work across it.

For the first time, Peña felt pity for the man in front of him. It’s not that he necessarily didn’t pity the man in the past six months, but the head of the Search Bloc didn’t present himself as someone to be pitied. He unleashed a lot of rage and frustration out on others in the time since she’d left. Hell, it might’ve been that fury that ultimately led them to taking down Escobar. But the man in front of him now? Sullen, lost, crumbled. This was a man to be pitied.

After a beat, Peña finally rose from his chair. No words needed to be exchanged to know that the man needed space right now. He nodded a silent goodbye as he watched the man’s eyes veer back to the photo of Kiara on his desk. 

A/N: More angst :( So far, the present has mainly consisted of Horacio's perspective and there's still a lot we don't know about how him and Kiara split up, with each chapter, hopefully, we unravel a little bit about the past as we continue into the present. Next chapter, we see if Horacio decided to take Kiara up on her offer to go to the bar and more Peña in the present! Right now, he's like a dog with a bone trying to figure out what's going on so maybe we'll see if he gets his answers in the next chapter! As always, please leave likes and reblogs if you're enjoying! Thanks so much!