The words echoed.
Ugly.
Desperate.
Real.
Diego staggered back slightly, like he’d been physically hit.
“All this time…” he muttered.
The apartment.
The money.
The future he thought he was building.
All of it…
Built on a lie.
He let out a hollow laugh.
“My family… my mother… they’ve been celebrating—”
“They don’t have to know,” Allison said quickly, grabbing his arm. “We can fix this—”
He yanked his arm away like she had burned him.
“Fix this?” he repeated.
Then louder—
“FIX THIS?”
The door outside creaked open slightly as voices murmured in the hallway.
His family was still there.
Waiting.
Smiling.
Believing.
Diego looked back at the ultrasound screen.
At the child he had already claimed.
Already named.
Already chosen over his own children.
And for the first time that day—
He felt something close to panic.
Real panic.
Because everything he had destroyed his life for…
Was never his to begin with.
Miles away, in the backseat of a quiet car heading toward the airport, I felt my phone vibrate.
A single message from Javier.
