The restaurant was smaller than Daniel expected.
Las Flores occupied the ground floor of a tired building on a side street off Broadway, squeezed between a nail salon and a store that sold quinceañera dresses. The awning was faded, the paint was peeling, and the hand-lettered sign in the window read: "Open Thursday-Sunday, or whenever Sofia feels like it."
He almost smiled at that.
It was Thursday, just past noon. The door was unlocked. Inside, the space was narrow and warm — eight tables covered in mismatched oilcloth, walls painted the color of sunset, a counter with a glass case displaying pastries that looked handmade. The air smelled like roasted chili and fresh tortillas. A radio on the counter played something soft in Spanish.
There were three customers: an old man reading a newspaper, a woman with a toddler on her lap, and a construction worker eating a plate of enchiladas with the focused intensity of a man who had found exactly what he needed.
Sofia was behind the counter, arguing with an ancient espresso machine.
"Come on," she muttered, hitting the side of it with her palm. "Don't do this to me today."
She was wearing jeans and a faded t-shirt that read "I void warranties." Her hair was pulled back in a messy knot. There was flour on her forearm and what looked like hot sauce on her shoe.
Daniel had walked into rooms with heads of state, cartel intermediaries, and Fortune 500 CEOs. None of them had made him feel as off-balance as this woman fighting with a coffee machine.
"Is it the pressure valve?" he asked.
Sofia looked up. Her eyes — dark, sharp, instantly assessing — swept over him in about two seconds. He watched her register the details: the jacket that cost more than her monthly rent, the watch, the haircut, the shoes. The way people always registered those things about him, slotting him into a category before he'd said three words.
"It's the everything valve," she said. "This machine is from 1987. It runs on stubbornness and prayer."
"May I?" He gestured toward the counter.
She stepped aside, curiosity overriding suspicion. Daniel moved behind the counter — aware that this crossed about six social boundaries simultaneously — and examined the machine. It was an old La Marzocco, the kind that was worth a fortune if it worked and worth nothing if it didn't.
"The gasket's gone," he said, running his finger along the seal. "It's leaking pressure before it reaches the brew head. You need a replacement — maybe forty dollars for the part."
Sofia stared at him. "You know espresso machines?"
"I worked in a coffee shop during college. Before —" He caught himself. Before he'd inherited an empire built on crime. "Before I changed careers."
"And what career are you in now?"
"Real estate."
He said it simply, watching her face for any flicker of recognition. If she had connected the data she'd found to his name, this was the moment it would show.
Nothing. Her expression stayed the same — mildly amused, mildly suspicious, the face of a woman who dealt with strangers all day and had learned to read them quickly.
"Real estate," she repeated. "And you're in my restaurant because..."
"I was walking by. The sign made me curious."
"The 'whenever Sofia feels like it' sign?"
"It's honest. I respect that."
The ghost of a smile. "Most people think it's unprofessional."
"Most people confuse professionalism with pretending to be something you're not."
She tilted her head, studying him with those dark eyes. He had the uncomfortable feeling of being scanned — not socially, but technically. Like she was running a diagnostic on him, looking for vulnerabilities.
"Sit down," she said. "I'll make you something. Not espresso, obviously, since you just diagnosed my machine with a terminal condition. But the horchata is good."
He sat at the counter. She poured him a glass of horchata — cold, sweet, with a hint of cinnamon that reminded him of something he couldn't quite place. Comfort, maybe. Or the memory of it.
"I'm Daniel," he said.
"Sofia." She leaned against the counter, arms crossed. "So, Daniel from real estate who knows espresso machines. What are you really doing here?"
The directness caught him off guard. He was used to people who circled, who performed, who said everything except what they meant. This woman went straight for the throat.
"Honestly?" he said. "I'm not sure."
It was the first true thing he'd said all day.
"Well," Sofia said, "when you figure it out, let me know. In the meantime, the enchiladas are twelve dollars and the horchata is on the house."
She turned back to the broken espresso machine, and Daniel sat at the counter of a restaurant that smelled like someone's home, drinking horchata made by a woman who had no idea she was sitting on a bomb — and that he was the one who was supposed to defuse it.
Or detonate it.
He hadn't decided yet.
Outside, a black SUV idled at the curb. Victor, watching. Always watching.
Daniel's phone buzzed. A text from Victor: Well?
He looked at Sofia, who was now explaining to the old man with the newspaper why she couldn't make tamales on a Thursday because "the corn has to rest, Don Miguel, I've told you a hundred times."
Daniel typed back: She doesn't know what she found. No immediate threat.
Victor's reply came in three seconds: Your father's people won't agree. You have 48 hours before I have to report the breach. Make it clean.
Daniel put his phone away and took another sip of horchata.
Forty-eight hours. To figure out what Sofia Reyes knew, what she'd saved, and whether he could protect her from the men who would kill her for it.
And to figure out why, sitting in this tiny restaurant with flour-dusted tables and a broken coffee machine, he felt more real than he had in years.
The clock was already running.