Anger surged, hot and bright, then something else—a cold, strange stillness—settled over me. Abril tightened her small hand around my own, her fingers digging into the fabric of my coat.
Lucía didn’t cry. She stood perfectly still, the photograph pressed against her chest, eyes locked on Arturo’s face as if she were trying to read something in the lines of his jaw.
Renata’s stare was like a wall of glass, reflecting nothing, absorbing everything.
In that moment, the three sisters exchanged a look—a quick, silent communication that seemed older than any of us. Their eyes met, then shifted, then met again, a rhythm that made my stomach twist into a knot.
They knew something. Something I didn’t.
“You’re coming home with me,” I said, my voice softer than I intended, the words spilling out like water finding a crack.
Arturo laughed, a short, hollow sound that echoed off the stone.
“Good. That solves my problem.”
