Chapter 57 Chris #2
Vicente’s expression hardens into something colder.
“Not everyone we dealt with was innocent, though. There was a man—American, a Texas oil baron—who’d been coming to Cancún for years.
Had a taste for little girls. Used his money and connections to make it all disappear.
” His voice goes flat, clinical. “Selena noticed the pattern and brought it to my attention. The day after his last visit to Mexico, he was found dead of an apparent stroke in his own bed. Died in his sleep, they said. All the evidence of his depraved habits open on his computer screen.”
I glance at Wyatt. He raises an eyebrow. Is this for my benefit? They know we’re listening.
“Getting his body back across the border, into his own house, into his own bed—that took some effort,” Vicente continues.
“But no one was ever able to find evidence of foul play. Just a dead pervert whose habits got swept under the rug because he had photos of important people who didn’t want the truth to see the light of day.
” A cold smile. “They’re like a fungus, men like him.
You have to burn the whole house down to kill the spores. ”
“You did this alone?” Nina asks.
“Arturo and I weren’t speaking then. This was... 2003, maybe 2004. We’d been estranged for years.” Vicente’s eyes cut to Arturo. “Though I suspect I wasn’t the only one clearing out rot during that time.”
Arturo’s jaw tightens. “No. You weren’t.”
Another long look passes between them. Old knowledge, never discussed.
“A young man came to me,” Arturo says after a moment. “His father owned a shipping empire. Used those routes to move women. Kept them in a facility he called ‘The Kennel.’“ His voice goes cold. “He took his son there as a boy. To make a man of him, he said.”
Vicente’s expression doesn’t change, but I see his hand curl into a fist.
“The son learned the business. Saw what his father was really doing. And he decided it had to end.” Arturo pauses. “The fire was ruled accidental. Faulty wiring in the poorly constructed building. All the women escaped. He did not.”
Vicente nods slowly. “Stavros?”
“Yes.”
“Purcell?” Arturo asks.
A single nod from Vicente.
I only recognize the one name, but the way they’re looking at each other—two men comparing notes on a shared vocation they’d never acknowledged—makes my skin crawl. And yet. The men they eliminated were men who hurt children. Men who used their money to buy immunity.
On screen, Nina’s posture shifts almost imperceptibly. “You’re telling me this openly. Why?”
“Because you asked about patterns. About the world we come from.” Vicente spreads his hands. “I’m a murderer, Dr. Palmer. I’ve never pretended otherwise. But I never harmed innocents. That was my line. The one thing I held onto when everything else went dark.”
“Everyone has their justifications.”
“Yes. And mine don’t excuse anything. I know that.” He pauses. “My one true regret—beyond the obvious—was trusting Gustavo. He was one of Alejandro’s rescues, actually, after us. We brought him into our operation, gave him a place, treated him like family. And he betrayed us.”
Arturo’s hand moves to Vicente’s knee. Steadying.
“The people we save don’t always stay saved,” Vicente says quietly. “That’s not a reason to stop. But it’s a lesson I learned too late.”
I file it away with everything else I don’t know how to reconcile. Monsters who rescue children. Killers who draw moral lines. Men who survived horrors and built empires and still couldn’t escape the patterns carved into them as boys.
The world doesn’t sort as cleanly as I want it to. Maybe it’s not supposed to.
Nina lets the silence hold for a moment before shifting direction. “I’d like to talk about the thirty years. The time you spent apart.”
Arturo’s hand is still on Vicente’s knee. Neither of them moves to break the contact.
“What would you like to know?” Vicente asks.
“I’m more interested in what Arturo has to say.” Nina’s focus shifts. “You’ve been quieter in our sessions. More guarded. I’d like to understand why.”
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.”
Arturo doesn’t answer. Vicente’s thumb traces slow circles on the back of his hand.
Wyatt leans close, his voice barely a murmur against my ear. “You okay?”
I nod, but I’m not sure it’s true. Something is shifting in my chest—the same unraveling I felt when Nina called Vicente out, only deeper now. Less about vindication and more about recognition.
On screen, Nina lets Arturo’s confession settle before she speaks again.
“Vicente.” Her voice is gentle but direct. “We’ve talked around this in previous sessions. Arturo’s patterns, Arturo’s fears, Arturo’s regrets. But I’d like to hear from you now. About your own patterns. The ones you’ve had to examine.”
Vicente is quiet for a moment. His hand is still wrapped around Arturo’s, but his gaze has gone distant.
“These sessions,” he says finally. “You. Arturo. Being forced to sit with someone who asks questions I’ve spent a lifetime avoiding.” A pause. “And nearly dying. That clarifies things.”
“What did it clarify?”
“How I’ve treated people. The ones I told myself I loved.
” His voice drops, rougher than I’ve ever heard it.
“I told myself it was love. That I was protecting them. Giving them things they couldn’t get elsewhere.
Making them better, stronger, more capable.
” He stops. Swallows. “But you can’t love someone you’re shaping into what you need.
Someone who can’t leave. Someone who can’t say no. That’s not love. That’s ownership.”
My lungs forget how to work.
Wyatt’s hand tightens on mine. I can’t look at him. Can’t look away from the screen.
“I did that to people,” Vicente says. “To Arturo, before he left—I made him feel like he couldn’t survive without me.
To others.” His eyes flick toward the corner of the room.
Toward the camera he knows is there. “People who trusted me. People I told myself I was helping when I was really just... shaping them. Breaking them.”
The room I’m sitting in feels too small. Too bright. Wyatt’s thumb moves across my knuckles, grounding, but I barely feel it.
“What changed?” Nina asks.
“Arturo.” Vicente’s voice cracks on the name.
“When we found each other again in June, he didn’t have to let me back in.
He had a life, a business, a family. He had everything.
He could have walked away after we finished with Gustavo.
Instead he opened his doors. His home. Himself.
” A pause. “He chose me. Not because I’d made him need me.
Not because he had nowhere else to go. He just.. . chose me.”
Arturo’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t speak.
“That’s when I understood the difference,” Vicente says. “Between someone who’s with you because you’ve made them need you, and someone who’s with you because they want to be. I’d never given anyone that choice before. I didn’t know how.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m trying to learn.” Vicente exhales slowly. “I can’t undo what I did. Can’t go back and give people the freedom I took from them. All I can do is try to be different. Earn trust I haven’t earned. Accept that forgiveness isn’t owed to me.”
His eyes find the camera again. Direct. Unflinching.
“I know you’re watching,” he says. “Whoever’s on the other end of those feeds. I know you’re there.”
Wyatt goes rigid beside me.
“I’m not asking for absolution,” Vicente continues. “I’m not asking for anything. But if the person I hurt most is listening—” His voice roughens. “I need you to know that I see it now. What I did. What I took. The way I convinced myself it was love when it was just control wearing a softer mask.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t move. Can’t do anything but sit here while Vicente Amador says, out loud, to a therapist and two hidden cameras, exactly what he did to me.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know that doesn’t fix anything. I know sorry is just a word, and words don’t undo five years of—” He stops. Collects himself. “But I’m saying it anyway. Because you deserve to hear it. Even if you never forgive me. Even if you shouldn’t.”
The screen blurs. I realize, distantly, that my eyes are wet.
Wyatt’s arm comes around my shoulders, solid and warm. He doesn’t say anything, just holds on.
On screen, Nina is quiet for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice is carefully neutral.
“Thank you for sharing that, Vicente. I know it wasn’t easy.”
Arturo’s hand finds Vicente’s face, turning it gently toward him. Whatever passes between them is too private for cameras, too intimate for witnesses. But I see Vicente’s shoulders drop, something in him finally letting go.
I wipe my face with the back of my free hand. Wyatt pretends not to notice.
This doesn’t fix anything. Doesn’t undo five years of conditioning, of learning to crave violence, of becoming something I still don’t fully recognize. Vicente’s apology doesn’t erase the nights I woke up reaching for him, or the shame that followed when I remembered who I was reaching for.
But it’s said. It’s real. It’s on the record.
Vicente Amador admitted, out loud, on camera, that what he did to me was abuse.
And somehow, impossibly, that matters.