Arturo is still for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is rougher than usual.
“Because Vicente has always been braver than me. About this. About all of it.”
Vicente turns to look at him, surprise flickering across his face.
“That night in June,” Arturo continues. “Gustavo. Finally.” He pauses, and I watch his throat work. “The last time Vicente and I had been in the same room was that disaster in ‘95. And there we were, making him answer for what he’d done. I expected to feel satisfaction. Closure. And I did.” He stops. Swallows. “But underneath all that rage, all that vengeance—I looked at Vicente, and all I could think was that I wanted to touch him. After everything. After thirty years of hating him for something he didn’t do. It hit me like a knife to the chest, how much I still wanted him.”
Wyatt’s breath catches beside me. His hand tightens in mine.
“There are parts of yourself you learn to hold back,” Arturo says. “Parts that could get you killed if you let them into the light. I grew up in that world. I knew the rules. Men like us—we didn’t get to want what I wanted. We didn’t get to feel what I felt. So I buried it. For years, I buried it, even when Vicente made it clear he felt the same.”
“You were protecting yourself,” Nina says.
“I was being a coward.” The word comes out sharp, self-lacerating. “That first night—Vicente was honest. Brave. He told me what he wanted, and I—” Arturo’s voice cracks. “I took what he offered and then I left. Walked away. Told myself it was for his own good. That I was protecting him from what would happen if the wrong people found out. But that was a lie.”
Vicente’s hand covers Arturo’s. “You did what you thought was right.”
“I took the coward’s way out. Staying would have been hard. Fighting for us would have been hard.” Arturo shakes his head. “And I didn’t just leave. I took Lola with me.”
Something shifts in Vicente’s expression. Old pain, barely scabbed over.
“She tried,” Arturo continues. “For nine years, she tried to bridge the distance between us. She loved us both—differently, but completely. And I let her carry that weight because I was too afraid to carry it myself.”
“The marriage was practical,” Vicente says quietly. “Celeste needed citizenship. Lola needed stability.”
“It was an excuse.” Arturo’s voice is rough. “A way for me to keep her close without admitting why I really wanted her there. Without admitting that every time I looked at her, I saw you. That she was the only piece of you I let myself have.”
Wyatt raises our hands, brushes his lips across my knuckles. The silent message eases some of the tension in my chest. That he sees me for who I am. Accepts me anyway.
“I left you alone,” Arturo says. “Took the one person who might have made that loneliness bearable. Told myself Lola chose to come with me. That she wanted the life I could give her in Los Angeles. But I knew what I was doing. I knew what it would cost you.”
“And when she was killed—” Vicente starts.
“I blamed you. For years, I blamed you.” Arturo’s voice goes raw. “Told myself if she’d stayed in Los Angeles with me full-time, if she hadn’t been going back and forth trying to keep us connected, she’d still be alive.”
“I blamed you too,” Vicente says quietly. “For taking her. For building the life I wanted—the family, the home, a daughter—while I was alone in Mexico, watching from the outside.”
“And the whole time, the man who actually killed her was standing right next to me.” Arturo’s voice goes flat. “Gustavo. My lieutenant. He stayed with me for years after her death, and I never knew. Never even suspected.”
“He fooled us both.” Vicente’s jaw tightens. “When he betrayed you, nearly got Celeste killed, I took him in. Gave him a place in my organization. Four more years I trusted him. Until he betrayed me too.”
“We wasted decades hating each other for something neither of us did.” Arturo shakes his head, speaking to Nina again. “And standing there with Vicente in June, watching Gustavo and Jovan answer for what they’d done—it was the first time in thirty years I felt like I was where I was supposed to be.”
The parallel lands hard, knocking the breath out of me. Holding back the parts that could destroy you. Running from what felt too real. The braver person being the one who stayed honest.
That was me. That’s what I did.
I’ve been doing the same thing. Since the wedding, since Denver, since every moment Wyatt made it clear he wanted more than I knew how to give—I ran. I buried it. Told myself I was protecting him from the damage I carried, that keeping my distance was somehow noble.
But it wasn’t noble. It was just easier than staying.
Arturo ran too. And all it did was hollow out both of them for three decades.
I don’t want that to be my story. I don’t want to spend thirty years learning what I could have had if I’d been brave enough to stay.
“I will atone for that choice for the rest of my life,” Arturo says quietly. “Every day I have left with him is borrowed time. A gift I don’t deserve.”
“Forgiveness isn’t about deserving,” Nina says. “It’s about choice. Vicente chose to let you back in. The question is whether you can forgive yourself.”
