Salient Confrontation

Callahan

“Are you going home or coming with me?" I ask my uncle.

“I'm coming with you.”

I nod and the two of us, along with a handful of soldiers, head toward the chopper.

My uncle stops me a few feet away. "You should have told me this is where you wanted to spend your wedding night," my uncle says. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the whirring of the blades.

"You'd try to talk me out of it."

"And for good reason. Why didn't you tell me? Even about the church?"

I consider my response. How much I want to give away. “You met with him," I say, finished with games. I've been finished with them since I woke up from the coma.

Time has become more valuable.

And I'm fucking tired.

Both eyebrows climb up his forehead. “Met with who?"

"Fernando."

"What?"

“Three years ago. On the balcony at the opera. I didn't even know you liked opera, Uncle." I study his face as I say it, laying out my cards, watching for any tells.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

"I have a photo. Several. Yo