Page 186 of Forbidden Fate

She lets out a scoff. “That’s not the most reassuring answer from an avowed criminal.”

“It’s the only honest one I have.” I step closer. “Everything I did before was because I thought I had no choice.”

Her expression hardens. “Everyone has a choice.”

“Yes.” I swallow. “I know that now.”

She exhales sharply. “Convenient timing.”

“I know.”

“Cruz—”

“My mother died,” I say, because if I stop, I’ll lose the nerve. “I was fifteen. Vega took me in after that. Gave me a place. Money. Protection. Purpose. Or what I thought was purpose.”

Robin watches me.

“I was young,” I continue. “Stupid. Grieving. Angry. I let myself believe I owed him because he picked me up when I had nowhere else to go.”

“Why?”

I frown. “Why what?”

“Why did Vega take you in?”

I’ve asked myself the same question more times than I can count, and I never found a satisfactory answer. “I don’t know.”

She tilts her head. “You’re not the first kid to lose a parent as a teenager.”

“No.”

“You’re not the first son of a prostitute in Colombia.”

“No.”

She bites her lip. “And Vega isn’t exactly running a charity.”

“God, no.”

“So why you?”

I glance away for half a second. “I’ve wondered that myself,”

She narrows her gaze. “You said you were fifteen when Vega took you in.”

“Yes.”

“How old are you now?”

“Thirty.”

She nods slowly, like that confirms something. “So around the same age as I am.”

“Yes.”

“And did you see him a lot? Vega? Was he around a lot, like, when you turned twenty, twenty-one?”

I wrinkle my forehead. “Yeah. I mean, he took trips sometimes, but he was around.”