All Chapters of The Captain I Blame For My Brother’s death, Hides his Jersey: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

CAMILA'S POVBy morning the safehouse had transformed into something closer to a medieval fortress under quiet siege, a specialized team of Marques pack enforcers I had never laid eyes on moving through the property with a grim, mechanical focus. They checked every window latch, tested every hedge line, and swept every inch of exterior masonry like men who had rehearsed this exact nightmare a hundred times before and fully expected to do it a hundred more.I stood shivering near the kitchen window holding a mug of coffee that had gone completely cold while I forgot to drink it, watching them work with a sinking knot in my stomach. Their ruthless efficiency, the total lack of spoken chatter, and the unsettling way they already seemed to know their defensive assignments without a single command being issued made my civilian skin crawl."You get used to it," a dry voice muttered from the kitchen doorway, and I jumped, nearly sloshing lukewarm brew across my oversized t-shirt. I turned to

CAMILAThe training ground smelled exactly the way I remembered it: cut grass, liniment, and the specific, stubborn staleness of an equipment room that hadn't seen fresh air since the previous decade. I stood at the edge of the pitch for a full minute, mostly because my legs felt like they were made of damp cardboard and I wasn't entirely sure they'd support my weight if I tested them.Security had tightened considerably since the Cup Final. I’d clocked it the moment I pulled my battered sedan into the lot: an extra pair of guards at the gate who checked my credentials twice like I was smuggling weapons in my handbag, a new camera angle bolted above the players' entrance that definitely hadn't been there two weeks ago, and a general, low-grade tension humming through the whole facility that no amount of professional, teeth-baring smiling from the club's press officer could fully paper over."You're back," Marisol said, falling into step beside me with a clipboard and a smile that look

LUCÍAThe café Rafael suggested sat two blocks from the club's medical wing. It was the kind of pretentious establishment with mismatched vintage chairs and a handwritten chalkboard menu designed to look effortlessly charming, despite the fact that nothing about buying a seven-dollar oat milk latte is ever effortless. I arrived ten minutes early like a desperate overachiever and immediately spent every single one of those minutes regretting my life choices.I told myself I was early because I wanted to scout the perimeter. I told myself it was purely a professional visit. I failed to convince myself even slightly.When Rafael walked in—freshly showered, hair still damp, wearing a button-down shirt that fit suspiciously better than anything in his official club headshot suggested he owned—I actively considered standing up, walking out, and pretending I'd been kidnapped by aliens."Sorry, am I late?" he asked, sliding into the chair across from me with an apologetic smile that was entir

CAMILA- I walked into the safehouse to find Tiago and Cam already deep in a low-voiced, tense post-mortem at the kitchen table. They both looked up sharply as Lucía and I pushed through the front door."Tell me everything," I said, bypassing any polite hellos."Clean break-in," Cam said, sliding his laptop across the laminate table so I could read the security logs. "Zero forced entry. Zero tripped alarms. No footage of anyone entering or leaving the storage corridor during the exact window when the sample vanished.""That's physically impossible," Lucía said, leaning over my shoulder to scowl at the glowing screen. "I’ve been in that building. Their security grid is airtight.""Which means whoever pulled this off either had administrative help getting past the wards," Tiago said, his voice dropping into a dark, gravelly register, "or bypassed them using methods entirely outside conventional tech."I felt the implication drop like an anvil in my gut. "Supernatural help.""Or a truste

CAMILAI woke up reaching for a warm space in the bed that wasn't there anymore.For a second I just lay there, blinking at the ceiling, my hand flat against the cold sheet where Tiago should have been. The room still smelled faintly like him, which somehow made the empty half of the bed feel worse instead of better. Then I heard voices downstairs, low and clipped, and my stomach dropped before my brain even caught up to why.I pulled on the first sweater I found and went to investigate, my bare feet cold against the hallway floor.I found Cam in the kitchen, already dressed, already grim, a mug of coffee going cold in front of him like he'd forgotten it existed the second he poured it. He looked up when I came in, and something in his face made me stop in the doorway instead of walking straight to the coffee pot the way I normally would have."Where's Tiago," I asked, not really a question."Gone since six," Cam admitted. "Henrique's people summoned him to a reception planning sessio