She arrived hours later, wearing a grease-stained apron from her second job at a fast-food restaurant. She froze when she saw him. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, her voice trembling. “The press will destroy you.”
“I don’t give a damn about the press,” Santiago said, stepping closer, stripped of all his arrogance. “I spent twenty years building this ice monster because it was safer. Because if everyone believed I had no heart, no one would realize I’m still the scared little boy from the orphanage who lost the only person he cared about. I knew where you were, Valeria.”
The shock on her face was devastating. “Did you know?”
“I had investigators. I knew about your work, about your mother’s death. And I was a coward,” tears—unknown to him for decades—filled his eyes. “I convinced myself that the child you believed in was gone. But then you appeared in my house, silently looking after me. And I realized I’ve been waiting for you my entire life.”
For illustration purposes only
Santiago reached into the pocket of his designer coat and pulled out a small velvet box. It wasn’t black or elegant, but worn with age. Inside were no diamonds. Instead, there was a spool of bright copper wire and a small pair of needle-nose pliers.
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