My fingers tightened around it instinctively.
Only then did the realization fully land.
Marcelo had taken the phone from my pocket while I was distracted.
A sick twist formed in my stomach.
He wasn’t just flirtating.
He had been probing—waiting for the smallest lapse.
He had taken advantage of my blindness, not as an inconvenience, but as a vulnerability he had already decided to exploit.
My throat tightened as I unlocked nothing and simply held the phone, as if touching it could undo what had already been exposed.
Marcelo’s voice returned, but it was different now.
“Mr. Ramiro,” he said smoothly, as if nothing had just happened, “I believe you know the Italians are sending their men over, offering good money to anyone who can help them find a weak link to Rafael.”
He was no longer pretending.
“This woman here...” he continued, and I felt the words aimed directly at me now, “she is that weak link.”
My fingers tightened around the phone so hard it hurt.
“There it is,” he added lightly. “I can easily go ahead and tell them that the great Rafael ‘El Mencho’ Pérez is secretly married.”
The world around me seemed to narrow.
The music, the laughter, the glass, the stool—all of it faded into something distant and unimportant.
Weak link.
That was all I was.
A vulnerability in someone else’s structure.
Ramiro’s attention snapped toward me immediately.
His voice came sharper now, cutting through the tension.
“What!” he said, disbelief laced with frustration. “Loretta, you told him about your marriage with Rafael?”
The accusation hit harder than I expected.
I turned slightly toward his voice, jaw tightening.
“No, I did not,” I shot back immediately, sharper than before. “I only told him I was married.”
A beat.
My grip on the phone tightened again.
“He pulled the rest from my phone while I wasn’t paying attention.”
The words came out faster now, frustration bleeding through.
Because that was the truth.
