All Chapters of The Captain I Blame For My Brother’s death, Hides his Jersey: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

CAMILAThe press event was called with about four hours' notice, which told me everything I needed to know about how badly the club wanted to control the narrative before anyone else could write it for them.I still had my embed credentials. Walking away from a media appearance about a wedding announcement I had every professional reason to cover would have raised exactly the kind of questions I couldn't afford, so I put on my most neutral blazer, my most professional face, and walked into Clube Atlântico's function room like my chest wasn't cracking open with every step."You look like you're heading into surgery, not a press conference," Lucía muttered beside me as we found seats near the back."Feels about the same," I admitted."Try not to look like you're about to faint. The cameras will notice.""Thank you, that's very reassuring.""I'm here for accuracy, not comfort," she replied, which was such an exact echo of something Cam would say that I almost laughed despite everything.

CAMILAI didn't have anything to offer him. No plan, no comfort that would have meant anything against a fear that raw. So I didn't try.I took his hand instead, and led him back inside, both of us aching with the specific, quiet devastation of loving something you aren't sure you get to keep. I needed, that night, to feel something true in a world that had become almost entirely built out of lies and political maneuvering and women delivering threats with a smile."Camila," he murmured, once the bedroom door had closed behind us, his voice edged with something that sounded almost like a question."I don't want to talk about the wedding anymore tonight," I whispered. "I don't want to talk about Beatriz, or Henrique, or pack law, or any of it. I just want tonight to be us. Just us. Can we have that?""Yes," he breathed, the word coming out rough, like it had cost him something to admit. "God, yes."He kissed me then, slow and searching, like he was trying to memorize the shape of it. I

CAMILARafael deserved better than half truths, and both Lucía and I knew it the moment the missing blood sample and the Aveiro discovery started pointing toward something too big for either pack to have engineered alone."He's already risked his career for us," Lucía pointed out, as we drove to meet him at the same quiet café we'd used before. "If we're asking him to keep risking it, he gets the real story. All of it.""All of it," I agreed, though my stomach was already twisting at the thought of how that conversation was going to go."You think he'll believe us?""I think he'll think we're insane for about ten minutes," I admitted. "Then I think he'll remember every strange thing he's ever seen on the job that never had a normal explanation, and it'll click faster than either of us expects.""That's oddly specific.""That's basically what happened to me," I confessed. "Minus the ten years as a paramedic."Rafael was waiting when we arrived, his coffee untouched, his expression alre

CAMILAIsadora Vaz was not at all what I'd pictured when Tiago first mentioned her name.I'd expected someone imposing in the way Henrique was imposing, all sharp edges and obvious menace. Instead, the woman who walked into the safehouse two days later was small, silver-haired, dressed simply, with the kind of quiet, understated presence that somehow felt more intimidating than anything overt could have managed."So," Isadora began, studying me with a long, unreadable look the moment introductions were finished. "You're the one.""The one," I repeated carefully."The reason Tiago has chosen an interesting time in history to fall in love," she clarified, something almost dry beneath the words."I didn't realize there were convenient times for that sort of thing.""There rarely are," Isadora replied, and something in her expression eased slightly, like my answer had passed some small, private test. "But some are considerably less convenient than others, and this happens to be one of the

CAMILAThe attack came without warning, without ceremony, a sudden explosion of motion from the treeline that scattered us before any of us could fully process what was happening."Move!" Tiago roared, shoving me sideways as a shape lunged from the darkness where a heartbeat ago there had only been watching, patient eyes.I stumbled, caught myself, and ran, my mind barely keeping pace with my body as the compound erupted into chaos around us. Wolves, a dozen of them or more, poured from the treeline with a coordinated speed that made it immediately clear this wasn't a random pack of strays. These weren't Cabral markings I'd learned to recognize over the past weeks. These wolves wore something else entirely, strange, old symbols etched faintly into their fur in patterns I'd never encountered before."Aveiro enforcers," Isadora shouted, already shifting into motion herself, something ancient and formidable emerging from beneath her calm, quiet exterior. "Fall back toward the treeline. N