God. His mother was married to a man named Bill Harrington, who’d made bank in Hilton Head real estate development, who talked big about money and deals and how you had to spend in order to make. Maybe he’d lost his shirt. Maybe that’s where the seventeen million had gone: into Barrington’s pockets. Rescuing his ex-wife from her husband’s financial disaster—that would appeal to Victor. But then someone had gotten stupid, gotten caught, had brought them all down. “Doesn’t it? I might pay for Papá’s fuckup, but I’m not going to pay for Bill’s.”

Agent Jeremy said, “Bill Harrington hasn’t been indicted for these crimes. The evidence points to Victor Cruz.”

His mother twisted the knife. “It’s not as though you have a career or a family of your own.”

I do. Ángel didn’t say it out loud though, just stared at her, seeing only the lack of love in her blue eyes.

His father loved him in his way, or had once. When Ángel was outed at seventeen, Victor had raged, wept, begged him to pray for forgiveness and change his ways. But his mother had simply turned away, with a coolness that suggested she never had loved him. Whatever happy memories she cherished from his childhood weren’t happy enough for her to keep in touch.

He had defied them both. He hadn’t changed his ways. He’d quit college to make a living as a musician. He would rather play and sing for los turistas at the Manatee Bar in Ormond Beach than pursue a career in engineering or medicine, like his brothers, or to become an electrician and work for his father.

He’d somehow cherished the hope that his parents still loved him. That they would someday come to accept him. Their queer boy, their session musician.

Now those hopes tasted as bitter as aspirin dissolving on his tongue. This was his parents’ assessment of his actual worth. His life, his relationships, the career that he’d been building, held nothing of value to them. He was expendable, and they’d sacrifice him to save themselves.

But he couldn’t just abandon them.

He turned to the Agent Jeremy. “Two years.”

“Four,” said Jeremy instantly.

Ángel sighed, looking again at his family: his mother, blonde, with her family’s sky-blue eyes, so lacking in warmth. His father like an older mirror image, brown and lean.

Neither of them quite met his eyes.

“Done,” said Ángel.

An imperceptible sigh of relief from his parents. Maybe from Agent Jeremy too. Then his father said gruffly, “Thank you, retaco.”

“You haven’t called me retaco since I was seventeen,” he snapped. “You don’t go back now.” He transferred his glare to Agent Jeremy. “Four years. And after this, all debts are paid. We are done and done.”