Chapter 26 Daniela
DANIELA
The testing center isn’t what I expected.
Cold air, polished floors, and a receptionist with a voice so soft it barely stirs the hum of the fluorescent lights. Despite everything—the fear, the uncertainty, the ache that never leaves me—I feel a flicker of warmth in my chest.
Hawk means well. He always means well. Even when he was chasing Jordan around like a madman, he meant well. It was all for me.
The private waiting area is lined with beige chairs and a single wooden shelf filled with books. Textbooks, mostly, though there are a few older ones, cracked spines and faded gold lettering. Someone’s tried to make the place look comforting, but it just makes me nervous.
Because that smell—disinfectant and paper—snaps me back in time so hard my lungs forget how to work.
For a second, I’m not here anymore. I’m sixteen again, standing in my father’s office, the heavy curtains drawn against the afternoon sun, the air thick with cigar smoke and something darker.
* * *
Jacinto Agudelo’s office is perfect. Always perfect.
The girls are so young. Each one dressed like a porcelain doll—tailored dresses, ribboned braids, little shoes that click softly against the tile. One of them carries a stuffed cat. Another bites her lip so hard I think she’ll draw blood.
“Choose,” he says.
My mouth is dry. “Excuse me?”
He nods to the row. “Pick one.”
I look at him, at the girls, back at him again. I open my mouth. No sound. I swallow hard enough to hurt and try again.
“Pick one,” I repeat, because I’m still not sure what’s going on. “For what?”
He nods. “Each of them comes from a respectable family. Healthy lineage, well-behaved, obedient. I’ve chosen them personally for Senor Vega’s pleasure.”
The world tilts. “For Vega?”
“Of course. You’ve been…indisposed.” He says it like it’s a minor inconvenience. Like I missed a dental appointment. “Vega is not a man who tolerates disappointment.”
“I’ll go to him,” I say quickly. “Please. Let me. I’ll—”
He shakes his head. “You’re contaminated, Daniela. He doesn’t want to touch you until the infection clears. You should be grateful he’s patient enough to wait at all.”
“Then let him wait!” I cry. “You can’t do this to them—”
He slaps the desk hard enough to make the pens jump. “Enough.” His voice drops to a growl. “This is not a discussion. You’ll choose which of them he’ll have tonight.”
I can’t breathe.
He smiles like a snake. “You’ve always had good taste. Consider it a test of character.”
I shake my head. “No.”
His sigh is almost theatrical. “You’re making this more difficult than it needs to be.”
He opens a drawer and pulls out his gun—a silver one, polished so bright the light glints off the barrel. He points it at me like he’s done it a hundred times before. Maybe he has.
My heart races, but not out of fear that my father will use the gun on me. My fear is for the girls.
“Choose, Daniela.”
The girls start crying softly. One of them whispers por favor. The smallest one—she can’t be more than twelve—hugs her stuffed cat and stares at me with wide and terrified eyes.
I can’t move.
My father raises an eyebrow. “No? Then perhaps I should decide for you.”
He turns the gun toward the smallest girl.
“Stop!” I scream.
“She’ll do just fine,” he says, cocking the hammer with an almost casual flick. “Pretty, innocent. Vega likes them that way.”
“Papa, please—”
“You know what happens when you disobey me,” he says, eyes cold. “Do not make me repeat the lesson.”
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. “Kill me instead,” I whisper.
He laughs. “Be reasonable.”
When I don’t answer, he shrugs. “Very well. We’ll start with her and then move on to the others until you make a decision.”
“No!”
The gun stays trained on the girl’s forehead.
“Choose,” he says softly. “Or she dies. And then another. And another. I have four more, remember.”
I want to die. I want to disappear. But I can’t let him do this.
“Please, stop,” I sob. “Please.”
“Choose.”
The room is spinning. I close my eyes and point at the one who looks the oldest to me, tears streaming down my cheeks. “That one,” I whisper. “The one with the braid.”
The girl gasps. The guard grabs her by the arm. She kicks, screams, begs.
My father smiles. “Good girl.”
The door slams shut behind them.
* * *
The sound of the nurse calling my name drags me back to the present. My pulse is hammering so fast I almost don’t hear Hawk say my name.
“Dani? You okay?”
I nod too quickly. “Yeah. Just…spaced out.”
He studies me, his brow creased, but doesn’t press. Thank God. He’ll chalk it up to everything else that’s going on—Belinda, Gordon Brown, my life in turmoil.
The nurse smiles politely and gestures toward a hallway lined with white doors. “Right this way, Ms. Agudelo.”
Hearing that name spoken aloud makes my skin crawl. I want to tell her not to call me that, but Hawk’s hand is already at the small of my back and he’s guiding me forward.
The hallway smells like more disinfectant. When we step into the small lab room, I see the chair.
“Left arm or right?” the nurse asks, snapping on gloves.
“Left,” I whisper.
The tourniquet bites into my bicep. I look away as she cleans my skin with an alcohol pad, but the sharp smell triggers another rush of memory—the sterile reek of my father’s office, the cold barrel of his gun, the screams in the hallway.
I grip the edge of the chair, trying to steady my breathing.
The needle slides in, and I watch as my blood fills the vial.
Blood.
So much of my life has involved blood.
Hawk stands beside me, silent. His hand is on my shoulder, but I feel like I’m floating out of my own body.
Because now, watching that blood swirl in the vial, I can’t stop thinking about the girl with the braid.
She had Belinda’s face.
When I met Belinda for the first time, she was standing in the bright kitchen of Raven and Vinnie’s house with a shy smile and curious eyes.
I thought my heart was going to stop. I knew it wasn’t possible, but God, she looked just like her.
The same round cheeks, the same tilt of the chin, even the same color of hair.
It hit me then, that maybe this was God’s way of giving me a chance to make things right. To protect the innocent this time.
I swore I’d keep her safe. That I’d never let another monster touch her.
And I failed.
Because I wasn’t paying attention. Because I was with Hawk, or I was focused on my own troubles and the cryptic gifts.
The guilt is so heavy I almost miss the nurse’s voice.
“That’s it,” she says, smiling behind her mask. “You did great.”
She tapes gauze over my arm and writes something on the label before dropping the vial into a tray.
“Thank you,” I murmur.
“Normally, this type of test takes about two weeks, but we can expedite the process. With the arrangement you’ve requested”—the nurse nods to Hawk—“we should be able to have results in three to five days.”
Three to five days. My stomach drops.
“That’s not fast enough,” Hawk snaps before I can speak. His voice has that dangerous edge—the one that warns people not to push him. “You said you could fast-track it.”
The nurse doesn’t flinch. “Mr. Bellamy, I assure you, this is the fastest it can be done. We’re talking about analyzing DNA. It’s not something we can rush without risking error. You wouldn’t want a false result, would you?”
Hawk grits his jaw. “I don’t want a delayed one either.”
I close my eyes for a second. He’s doing this because he cares for me. Because waiting feels like a hundred years.
“Three days is the absolute minimum. I understand this is stressful, but I give you my word—we’ll make it our top priority.”
Hawk exhales through his teeth. He’s not used to hearing the word no. He’s not used to being helpless.
He finally nods. “Fine. Just…call the second you have anything.”
“Of course.”
The nurse stands and slips out, leaving us in the too-small room with its humming fluorescent lights and white walls. The air feels different once she’s gone. Thicker somehow.
Hawk reaches for my hand, his fingers warm. “You okay?”
I nod automatically. “I’m fine.”
I’m not fine. I’m a live wire inside my own skin. But if I tell him that, he’ll worry even more. He already looks like he’s bracing to hold the sky up for me.
So I pretend.
And he lets me.
For now.
Hawk helps me up, his hand steady at my elbow.
We walk back down the hallway in silence. I feel his eyes on me, worried, searching, but I keep my gaze fixed ahead. If I look at him too long, I’ll break.
Back in the waiting room, I glance again at the shelf of dusty books. My chest tightens.
“You sure you’re okay?” Hawk asks again.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
I swallow. “About how some rooms never leave you,” I say. “No matter how far you run.”
He nods, like he understands, but he doesn’t. Not really.
He doesn’t know what it’s like to be sixteen, to have your father hand you a choice that tears your soul in half. To live every day since then trying to atone for it.
He doesn’t know that tomorrow morning, while he’s still asleep, I’ll drive to that address in the pink envelope and offer myself to the man who helped ruin my life in exchange for the girl I swore to protect.
He doesn’t know that every time he looks at me like I’m something precious, I feel the weight of what I’ve done pressing harder on my chest.
And he doesn’t know that no matter what that vial of blood reveals—whether I’m dying or not—I’ve already decided how my story ends.
I’ll trade my life for Belinda’s.
Gladly.
But tonight…
Tonight, I’ll let myself have one more moment of peace. One more night of warmth before the cold takes over again. This time forever.
Hawk slips his hand into mine as we walk back to the waiting room, and I let him. His palm is rough and steady, and for a second I can almost believe I’m just another woman leaving another doctor’s office.
But I’m not.
I’m a woman with ghosts that never stop screaming.
And the girl I couldn’t save is waiting for me in every shadow.
If this is the last day I ever see the sun as a free woman, at least I’ll remember how it feels on my skin.
What I don’t tell him is that the hardest part is yet to come.
Because tomorrow morning, I’ll put on the blue dress the Chef asked for and I’ll go to him.
Alone.
And I’ll make sure that this time, someone else gets to walk away.
I try to sniff back tears.
I’m unsuccessful.