My control wore thinner with every second.
I hated this. I didn’t have time or interest in dealing personally with inconveniences this small. But this meeting mattered—for Dreamland, for Eloá—and I couldn’t afford failure. Not even here.
When Pedro returned, his face was tense, almost pale.
“Mr. Ferrara… I’m sorry. They’re refusing to move. They won’t let the car through.” His voice dropped. “They’re demanding to speak with you directly.”
Anger flared sharp and silent inside me.
I inhaled slowly, containing the almost overwhelming urge to explode.
I don’t lose control.
Not ever.
“Fine,” I said with icy calm, straightening the cuffs of my jacket. “If they want to speak to me so badly, they’ll get exactly that.”
I stepped out of the car with measured precision, letting my posture and presence do what they always did—command space. Command attention.
The crowd’s chanting faltered.
Faces turned.
Their surprise was almost satisfying.
I surveyed them with absolute cold, registering hesitation, insecurity—and, in some, the first flicker of fear.
I was almost pleased.
And then my eyes landed on a woman standing rigidly with her back to me.
She held a sign so tightly it looked like her fingers might puncture the cardboard.
Something inside me stalled.
My body went still.
Breath trapped in my chest as a violent, impossible familiarity sliced through me.
No.
It couldn’t—
The woman turned slowly, as if she felt it too. As if something inevitable was dragging her around.
And when our eyes met, the world imploded.
It hit like a brutal punch to the gut, knocking the air from my lungs.
Valentina.
Her name echoed inside my head with horrifying clarity—just as it had the day I left her in that church.
Five years.
Five years without seeing her. Without hearing her voice. Without allowing myself to look directly at her in my mind.
Five years trying to erase her face from my memory, my life.
