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I look away, swallowing the tension knotting my throat. "I have no choice. Ivy can’t shut down her emotions. She can’t keep a secret like this from her family. She wouldn’t be able to watch them suffer while she knows the truth. This is the only way to ensure Abel’s return. So, as far as Ivy is concerned, you will have died of natural causes."
"But she won't believe you," he protests.
I meet his gaze, narrowing mine. "That is for me to worry about."
23
Santiago
I lower myself into the pew where my father once used to sit, staring up at the altar where his photo is displayed. The memorial photos of him and Leandro in the chapel have since been replaced, but something feels different about this space.
I am not the same man I was before, sitting here, mourning their deaths. I grieve for them still, but it is not the same depth of grief. When I look into my father's eyes, cold and hard, I find myself searching for his certain disappointment. And indeed, that is what I see. It is what I have always seen. If he were here now, he would tell me how weak and pathetic I am. He would rage that I have not accomplished what I set out to do.
For so long, I have carried the burden of those demands. A loyalty to a man who never spared so much as an ounce of affection for me. My guilt and shame have been heavy, weighted further by a hatred of the Moreno family. A result that felt like the natural response I should have. Somewhere to place the blame. A target for a lifetime of anger. But I am tired.
I am fucking exhausted of his expectations, even in death.
Perhaps that is what possesses me to rise and walk to the altar. When I reach up and pull down his photo, I can almost feel him rolling in his grave. He has dictated every move I have made for so long. Every emotion I never allowed myself to feel. Every failure that felt like another noose around my neck.
And when I look into his eyes, I know what Ivy said is true.
This is not love. This man who I have respected, and admired, and worshipped for so long did not love me. He controlled me. He was the master of strings, and I was the puppet. And even in his absence, he still manages to control those strings. As long as I allow him to dictate my future, he always will.
The weight of the photo pulls my arms down, and gradually, I watch it slip from my grasp, clattering onto the floor as glass shatters around my feet. For a few long moments, I stare at the remnants, and something comes over me that I can't explain. I stagger back, trying to catch my breath, my eyes burning with pain.
My breaths come shallow and then deep, turning to aching howls as I collapse back onto the pew and allow myself to feel the truth of my own emotions. My head collapses into my hands, and moisture leaks from my eyes, dripping down onto the floor.
I don't know how long it goes on for. But with every painful heaving sob, something lighter expands in my chest. I think, perhaps this is what they call relief.
A hand on my shoulder startles me, and when I snap my gaze up, I am shocked to find Antonia standing beside me. Our eyes lock, and humiliation burns my face as she slowly comes around to sit beside me, sliding across the bench like she's approaching a wounded animal.
I dip my head when I feel her studying the broken glass on the floor, the photo of my father lying in tatters.
"I always thought this place could do with some redecorating." Her fingers come to rest on my forearm, a gentility she has always offered me, even when I did not deserve it.
Slowly, I bring my focus back to hers, and I see something I never expected in the softness of her smile. I think she is proud.
"You are a good man, Santiago De La Rosa," she says. "You have always had it in you."
"I think you give me too much credit." I sit up straighter, discreetly wiping my face dry.
"I give credit where it is due. It is long past time you let go of these demons. You are beginning a new life. A life with so many possibilities. You have a beautiful wife who cares for you. A baby on the way. It's a new season. Time to clear away the old growth and make way for the new."
When she reaches down to squeeze my hand, I don't stop her. It reminds me of when I was a boy, how so often it was Antonia who looked after me. She tended to my wounds, and helped me with my homework, and taught me how to ride a bicycle and tie my shoes. She has always been there, more of a parent than my own in many ways. I have not given her adequate respect for that role. For the sacrifices she has made to work for my family for as long as she has, forgoing a family of her own. Dreams of her own.
