“I’ve been thinking about...about my choices. And about the life inside me.” I swallow hard. “My baby doesn’t deserve this, do they?”
Her jaw clenches, but she finishes her word before she speaks again.
“I’m so sorry, Carmen,” she says finally, her voice low. “I wish there was something more I could do.”
Oh, there is. There is, but I don’t know if I can trust you now, Doctor Alvarado. Will you make everything worse?
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” I say instead, tears falling now. “Everything is ruined, and I don’t even know if I care anymore. I just want to...to keep my child safe.”
Please, see me. Please, I’m so desperate.
“I miss him,” I whisper. “He would look after me. He’d look after us both. I know he would. Don’t you think I deserve that?”
“Carmen.”
I see the hesitation in the doctor’s face, the uncertainty. She’s afraid. She has every right to be.
But I’m terrified. And I will fight for this.
“Look at me.”
Doctor Melissa Alvarado bravely meets my gaze.
“Do I deserve this?”
The older woman’s face shatters. It’s a face that I’ve known for twenty years. She looks at me with a grief that I’ve only seen once before.
The day she announced my mother’s death.
“Please,” I plead. “You’ve got to help me. Get a message to Dante, to anyone. Please. If anyone knows what to do, it’s him. And I know he’ll fight for me….fight for our child.”
She looks around the small, cold cell, the weight of the situation settling between us.
“I can’t make any promises, Carmen. You don’t understand how much danger you’re in, how much danger you put me in if I even try. But...I will try.”
A sob breaks out of me as I throw my arms around her neck and bring her in close. “Thank you.”
She’s silent for a moment longer, then nods against my shoulder. “I’ll try. I’ll try, Carmen.”
27
DANTE
The days blur together. A cycle of motion without meaning.
Night after night, Rocco and I watch the Rubio mansion from a distance, tracking every flicker of movement behind its iron gates. We take shifts, swapping intel, waiting for something—anything—to happen. But the mansion remains eerily silent.
No signs of Lacruz. No whispers of Carmen.
It’s grunt work, really. Not that I’m surprised after that last meeting with Leon. My impassioned plea for Carmen’s life thankfully delayed my immediate plans of attack.
But it brought with it the whispers. The suspicious looks. The “what-do-you-think-you’re-playing-at” glares from across the room from men I’ve considered my allies for years.
Let them stare. Let them speculate.
Rocco is as loyal as ever, and Mia is quick to shoot down anyone who gets mouthy. But the cat is out of the bag now, whether I confirm it or not.
Everyone knows that at some point over the last five months, I crossed a line with Carmen Rubio.
