“I’m sorry.”
Mrs.
Alvarez looked ready to scold her until she saw Adrian.
Then her expression changed.
“Oh,” she whispered.
Adrian heard it.
“You know who I am?”
The woman looked at Lucía before answering.
“I’ve known Marisol seven years.
I’ve seen your picture.”
Before Adrian could ask more, a cardiothoracic surgeon approached.
“Mr.
Vega? I’m Dr.
Priya Patel.”
Adrian shook her hand.
“How is Marisol?”
“She has severe mitral valve disease that has progressed into heart failure.
She was admitted yesterday after collapsing.
We stabilized her, but her condition deteriorated this afternoon.
We’re preparing for urgent surgery.”
Adrian struggled to process the medical language.
“Is she going to survive?”
Dr.
Patel did not offer false certainty.
“We’re doing everything we can.”
She held out a sealed envelope.
“Marisol left instructions that this be given to you if her condition worsened.”
Adrian stared at his name written across it.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
Before he could open it, the ICU door burst outward.
A nurse hurried toward them.
“Dr.
Patel, she’s awake.”
Lucía gasped.
“For how long?” the surgeon asked.
“Less than a minute.
She’s asking for her daughter…
and Adrian.”
Inside the room, Marisol looked smaller than Adrian remembered possible.
Oxygen tubing ran beneath her nose.
Wires disappeared beneath the hospital gown.
Her skin was pale against the pillow.
But her eyes were open.
When she saw Adrian, tears filled them.
“You came.”
He stood frozen at the end of the bed.
Nine years of questions crowded into his throat.
Only one escaped.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Marisol’s expression broke.
“I tried.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“I called until your number stopped working,” she continued.
“I mailed letters.
I went to your office.
Your father met me outside.”
Adrian felt the room tilt.
“My father?”
Marisol nodded.
Lucía climbed onto the chair beside her and pressed her face against her mother’s arm.
Marisol stroked her hair weakly.
“Open the envelope.”
Adrian did.
Inside were copies of five letters.
All addressed to him.
All marked returned.
There were printed screenshots of messages supposedly sent from Adrian’s account telling Marisol never to contact him again.
There was also a copy of a bank transfer authorization for sixty thousand dollars from a Vega family holding company.
Across it, in Marisol’s handwriting, were the words: REFUSED.
I DID NOT TAKE THIS MONEY.
Adrian looked up.
“What was this?”
“Your father’s offer.”
“For what?”
Marisol’s voice was barely audible.
“To leave California and never identify you as Lucía’s father.”
Lucía looked between them.
Adrian’s blood went cold.
“You knew you were pregnant when we separated?”
“I found out three days after you left for Madrid.
I called your hotel.
Somebody transferred me to an assistant.
After that, your father appeared at my apartment.”
Adrian remembered the Madrid expansion vividly.
Rafael had insisted Adrian travel early because the company was supposedly facing a financing crisis.
He had been gone six weeks.
During that time, Rafael’s office handled nearly all his communications.
“He told me you’d already decided I was trying to trap you,” Marisol said.
“I didn’t believe him at first.
Then messages started coming from your account.”
“I never sent them.”
“I know that now.”
Adrian pulled out the final item in the envelope.
A tiny digital recorder.
Marisol looked toward it.
“His second
