Chapter 140
Lucía POV
Matías fell asleep on my chest at nine-thirty that night, and for the first time in weeks, I didn’t move to put him in his crib.
I stayed on the couch, watching TV with the volume almost muted so I wouldn’t wake him. His heavy breathing against my collarbone, his little hand clutching the neck of my sweater like even in his sleep he didn’t want to let me go.
He was eleven months old. Eleven months and two weeks, to be exact. And every night I held him, he felt a little heavier, his face looked a little more like Gabriel’s, and my life got a little more complicated in the same proportion.
The TV was tuned to a U.S. gossip channel I had been watching religiously for a year.
Not for gossip. For information.
When you’re living hidden in a country that isn’t yours, without a smartphone, without social media, with no connection to the life you left behind except a small television and limited internet, entertainment shows become your intelligence source. The way to know if the woman who threatened you a year ago is still breathing—or has finally gotten tired of you. The way to monitor without being monitored.
I had been doing this for months. Every night. Waiting for any news about the Morettis or the Harringtons that would tell me whether it was safe to breathe—or if I needed to pack again.
Three weeks ago, the news had come that changed something inside me.
Dante Harrington dead.
Confusing details. Official version: firearm incident during a kidnapping. Tabloid version: he kidnapped his wife, Gabriela Moretti, there was a confrontation, he ended up dead under circumstances the Moretti family refused to comment on.
When I heard it for the first time, I sat on this same couch with Matías in my arms and cried for twenty straight minutes.
Not for Dante. He could rot wherever he was.
For Gabriela.
For my friend. For the woman I met at the worst moment of my life—and who became the worst moment of hers. The only person in that family I had built something real with before everything exploded. I had taken care of her during her first pregnancy, and she had trusted me with more than she trusted her own mother.
And then I lost her.
I lost her when I walked away from Gabriel.
I lost her when I went to Malone.
I lost her when I moved to Boston.
I lost her when I crossed the border with a newborn baby and promised myself I would never hear from her again.
But I kept thinking about her.
Always.
And finding out Dante was dead—that the man who had kept her locked in a Hamptons mansion, beating and violating her, could no longer hurt her—was the first moment in a long time that I felt like the universe had done something right.
That night I wrote a letter. No recipient. No return address. Just for me. Telling Gabriela everything I hadn’t been able to say before I disappeared. I burned it afterward in the bathroom sink, because writing it was safe—but keeping it wasn’t.
Now the host on the gossip show was talking about something new.
I raised the volume just a little.
—And the story shaking New York’s millionaire circles this week. After months of legal battle, the divorce between Gabriel Moretti, heir to the Moretti Enterprises empire, and Victoria Harrington, daughter of magnate William Harrington, was officially finalized this afternoon in a Manhattan court.
My heart sped up in that way I had spent a year trying to control.
Divorced.
Gabriel divorced.
—Sources close to both families confirm that the relationship between the Morettis and the Harringtons is officially over. What began as a business alliance between the two groups just over a year ago ended in scandal after the death of Dante Harrington, Victoria’s brother, in an incident the press is still trying to clarify.
Images on the screen. Gabriel leaving the courthouse with his lawyer. Dark suit. Rigid posture. The face of a man who had just carried something far too heavy for far too long.
The camera only caught him for two seconds, but it was enough for something to tighten under my sternum.
He looked thinner. Older. More tired.
More alone.
—Some sources suggest that part of the conflict between the families stemmed from Victoria’s inability to conceive an heir, which allegedly intensified tensions in the final months of the marriage. Other reports point to a prior romance between Gabriel Moretti and a woman outside the family’s social circle—a relationship Victoria allegedly discovered shortly before signing the marriage contract. Whatever the real reason, the truth is that tonight Manhattan’s most eligible bachelor is officially back on the market—
I changed the channel before the sentence ended.
Matías shifted against my chest. I stroked his back until he settled again with a soft sigh that nearly made me cry from exhaustion.
Divorced.
Gabriel was divorced.
The information echoed in my head like a stone tumbling down a staircase. Each step, a new thought. Each thought more dangerous than the last.
Did it mean Victoria no longer had control over him?
Did it mean the threat she made against me was gone?
Did it mean I could go back?
I looked at Matías asleep against my chest. The line of his nose that wasn’t mine. The shape of his jaw, tense even in sleep, exactly like the man who had just appeared on the screen.
My son didn’t know his father.
His father didn’t know he existed.
And for a year, I had told myself that was the best decision I could make—for the two people I loved most in the world: him and Gabriel.
But now…
Now, with Dante dead and Victoria divorced and Gabriel free…
Now what?
The landline in the kitchen rang.
I startled so hard Matías shifted again. I held him tighter, stood up slowly, and walked the few steps to the kitchen with him pressed to my chest.
I picked up before it rang a second time.
—Mom?
—Lucía?
My mother’s voice. Higher than usual. Faster.
—What happened?
—Honey, I just got a call and I need to tell you something, and I need you to listen without panicking.
—Mom, I’m already panicking. Talk.
—Gabriela Moretti called me an hour ago.
The kitchen floor tilted beneath my feet.
—What?
—Gabriela Moretti. His sister. She called me. She said she needs to find you urgently.
—What did you tell her?
—That I don’t know where you are. That even if I did, I wouldn’t tell her. That they should stop looking for you.
—And what did she say?
—That you’re in danger. That his ex-wife found you. That she knows where you are. That she threatened you. And that they need to warn you so you can move before she sends someone.
I sat down because my legs stopped working.
Matías opened his eyes for a second, looked at me in sleepy confusion, and closed them again, pressing closer to my neck.
—Mom… did you believe her?
—She sounded sincere. She sounded scared. But I didn’t tell her anything. I swear I didn’t. But I’ve been thinking about it for an hour, and I need to talk to you. You have to decide what you’re going to do.
—Do about what?
—Everything, Lucía. About Matías. About Gabriel. About going back. I just saw online that he signed the divorce. Your brother showed me half an hour ago. If that woman is no longer his wife, the threat changes. And if Gabriela is willing to look for you to protect you, it means the whole family knows now—and they’re going to move.
—Mom—
—You have a son, Lucía. Your son’s father is free. He’s been suffering for a year, from everything I see on those programs. And you’ve been hiding alone in another country for a year, carrying a secret that’s too heavy. Something has to change.
—No, Mom.
—Lucía—
—No. Listen to me. If I show up with Matías now, the whole family finds out the truth. All of it. And Victoria too. That woman is not stupid. Even if she signed the divorce, if she finds out Gabriel has a child she never had, she’ll lose whatever sanity she has left. And she’ll come for us. For me and the baby. With or without a current threat.
—Honey—
—And even if it weren’t Victoria. Even if Gabriel is now free and clean and available… what do I offer him? I show up after a year saying surprise, you have a son, I hid him because your ex-wife threatened me but not anymore, do you want to meet him? No, Mom. It doesn’t work like that.
—Then what? Are you going to stay hidden forever?
—I’m going to stay hidden until I know it’s safe. And safe doesn’t mean they signed a paper this afternoon. Safe means months go by without that woman making a move. That she marries someone else. Leaves the country. Dies of natural causes if the universe does me that favor. But a divorce signed today is not safe, Mom. It’s just paper.
My mother sighed.
—Alright, honey.
—If Gabriela calls again, will you keep refusing to tell her anything?
—I will refuse to tell anyone. Gabriela, Gabriel, the Pope himself. My daughter told me to protect her, and that’s what I’ll do.
—Thank you, Mom.
—But Lucía…
—What?
—Be careful. Very careful. If that woman really knows where you are, if what Gabriela said is true, then you’re in real danger. Don’t go out at night. Don’t open the door to strangers. Don’t follow routine routes. And if anything feels off—anything—you grab Matías and get on a bus to another city before the day ends. Do you hear me?
—I hear you.
—Promise me.
—I promise.
—I love you.
—I love you too.
I hung up.
I sat there with Matías asleep on my chest for ten minutes that felt like an hour.
My mind wouldn’t stop.
Gabriela looking for me.
Gabriel divorced.
Victoria knowing where I was.
My mother’s warning.
The TV still on in the living room.
And beneath all of it, the question I had spent a year avoiding:
Was I living—or just surviving?
Because what I had been doing didn’t look like a life. It was a routine of fear.
Wake up. Drop Matías at daycare. Go to work. Pick him up. Go home. Close the curtains. Watch gossip shows to monitor people who couldn’t know I still existed. Sleep badly. Repeat.
My son would turn one in two weeks.
He had never met his father.
Never met his paternal grandmother.
Never left the town we lived in.
His world was this small house, a daycare with three caregivers, and a mother who loved him—but could only give him love in miniature.
I laid Matías in his crib at ten-thirty. Watched him sleep for five full minutes, because watching him breathe was the only thing that worked as an anti-anxiety remedy.
Then I went to bed fully dressed. Left my phone on the nightstand, volume high.
I stared at the ceiling until two in the morning.
Go back.
Don’t go back.
Wait.
Run again.
When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of Gabriel.
His face before everything got complicated.
The last time I kissed him in that café in Millbrook.
His hands. His voice.
I woke up crying at five-thirty.
By seven in the morning, Matías was dressed, fed, ready for daycare.
At seven-fifteen, I was going down the building stairs with him in my arms.
The street was gray. Early winter gray. A few neighbors taking out trash, others scraping ice off windshields.
My car was half a block away—a used minivan I bought in cash so no one would ask questions.
I walked toward it.
A black SUV was parked nearby. Tinted windows. Engine running.
I hadn’t seen it before.
I stopped.
Instinct—trained over a year—activated like a silent alarm at the base of my neck.
I turned around.
Took two steps back.
The side door of the SUV opened.
Three men stepped out.
Big. Dressed in black. Faces covered.
—Don’t scream. Get in with the child and no one gets hurt.
My body froze for half a second.
Then instinct took over.
I clutched Matías and ran.
Three steps.
Four.
A hand grabbed my arm.
Another covered my mouth.
The third ripped Matías from me.
And I screamed.
I fought. Kicked. Bit. Twisted.
Matías cried—sharp, terrified.
—Matías! My baby!
They dragged him to the van. Dragged me after.
—Help!
No one came.
They shoved me inside.
—Please don’t hurt my son. Please. Do whatever you want to me, but not him.
—Be quiet.
A prick in my neck.
Cold spreading.
Dizziness.
—Matías…
—He’s fine. Just going to sleep. You too.
The van started moving.
The last thing I heard was his crying fading.
And one thought.
Victoria.
This was her.
I had waited a year for this moment.
And now—
I couldn’t even say my son’s name without my throat closing.
I closed my eyes.
Please.
Someone—
please protect him.
Then nothing.