Page 2 of Chris

For all of this.

Across the table, Missy nodded at Valeria with a subtle tilt of her chin. Her grin reached to her eyes, as though she held a secret, but for now, she was only hinting at it.

Martín seemed to understand.

“Ah, el bebé,” Martín said, chuckling. Setting his glass to the table harder than necessary, proving just how much he had imbibed over the course of the dinner, he smiled and nodded. “Very pleased. We hoped it would be a niño for us. A boy. And yet, it seems it will be a girl, but that’s okay, too.”

Valeria had done her best throughout the dinner to not draw attention to herself. For the last several months, they had not allowed her out of the Lòpez’s compound after her marriage. This was one of the first dinners she attended, and her greatest fears would be that someone would ask about her father, apologize for her mother’s death, or even, like now, want to discuss her current life.

Valeria’s hand lifted from the table to rest upon the swell of her stomach. Under her palm, she felt the baby girl shift from her mother’s touch, but like the good baby she already seemed to be, the child settled, allowing Valeria little discomfort from the movement.

“Congratulations,” the woman said to Valeria. “Babies are gifts.”

“Blessings,” the man next to her added.

Right.

Her husband created this baby through violent means and pain, but she wouldn’t say so. Was raping her a blessing? And besides, she loved her daughter. She loved her enough that she sat at this table, kept her smile on, and shut her fucking mouth so that Jorge wouldn’t beat her later in the evening when everyone left. Then, the baby wouldn’t get hurt, too.

“Thank you,” Valeria whispered.

Her first words at the dinner.

No one seemed to notice.

Next to her, Jorge gave Valeria a tight smile. Another warning, she figured, but without him speaking it out loud. She didn’t need him to do that at all—she was aware what he expected of her, and what the punishment would be if she failed.

It used to scare her.

He terrified her.

Now, she just … worried.

For this child she carried, mostly. Because what would happen to her once she made her presence known in the world. Valeria, all of sixteen years old, but she would be seventeen before this baby was born. Not that it mattered because what control did a girl of her age have against a man like her husband. Six years her senior, a criminal who had only taken her because of the status it would provide him, and far too power hungry for his own good.

What could she do?

How might she protect this baby from him?

From the rest of them?

“Val, would you like another drink of water?”

At the soft question from a familiar, kind voice, Valeria came out of her thoughts to see her sister-in-law standing from the seat on the other side of hers. Abril gave Valeria a small smile, but in her eyes she found the truth.

Concern warred in Abril’s gaze.

Older than her by a few months, Abril was the only person in the Lòpez family that Valeria had made friends with, and sometimes, she even questioned it because she no longer trusted anyone. Abril had done nothing to prove she deserved that hesitation though. She helped.

And she had promised to help more.

“Water?” Abril asked again.

Valeria nodded. “Yes, thank you, that would be nice.”

Abril passed Valeria’s chair, her hand coming to rest on her shoulder as she bent down to whisper, “The plan happens tonight—I received the message.”

As quickly as Abril had told her the words, ones that might promise her freedom, she was leaving the dining room and the rest behind. Valeria looked to the man at her side, finding her husband distracted, and grinning at the young wife of an official across the table from him.