Heartbreak.
He didn’t understand contracts or inheritances or bloodline deals. He didn’t know what Harris’s refusal meant in practical terms. But he understood abandonment. He understood what it looked like when someone decided you weren’t worth the trouble.
I saw it hit him in real time—the way his shoulders curled inward, the way his fingers twisted together in his lap like he was bracing for something worse to come.
And in that moment, something inside me finally collapsed.
Not loudly. Not dramatically.
Quietly. Completely.
I was disposable.
Harris didn’t need me.
The Thompsons didn’t fear me.
The Vasquez name meant nothing without a man attached to it.
My father was gone. My supposed protector, dead and silent in the ground. Harris stood three feet away, alive and powerful, and chose—without hesitation—to let me fall.
I felt something settle in my chest then. Not panic. Not rage.
Clarity.
No one was coming to save me.
There would be no rescue. No last-minute miracle. No hand reaching out to pull me back from the edge.
It was just me.
Me, standing upright despite the pain.
Me, breathing through a throat that barely worked.
Me, still alive after everything that had tried to kill me.
And somehow—terrifyingly, impossibly—that had to be enough.
I lifted my chin.
My body shook, but I stayed on my feet.
My ribs ached with each inhale, the bruises beneath my dress blooming darker by the second, but the pain barely registered compared to the weight pressing down on my chest.
“Harris...”
My voice slipped out before I could stop it—barely more than a whisper, cracked and raw.
The swelling in my throat made each word feel like it was tearing its way through scar tissue. Blood still coated my tongue, metallic and bitter. I leaned toward him, close enough that only he could hear me, lowering my head like this was some private plea instead of a public execution.
“Let’s just get this done,” I said, forcing the words out slowly, carefully. “I will not agree to any postponement.”
For a fraction of a second, I thought I saw something flicker in his eyes. Not sympathy—never that—but calculation. Then it vanished.
He recoiled as if I’d lunged at him.
Harris took a deliberate step back, then another, putting space between us with exaggerated care. One manicured hand came up to cover his nose and mouth, his expression twisting into theatrical disgust, as though the scent of blood, sweat, and street dust clinging to me was something obscene.
