Chapter 20 #2
“Luis Sanchez.”
The shift is immediate and stark. The frantic, fearful woman from moments ago is gone, replaced by something cold and deadly. My mother’s voice carries a quiet, lethal quality that makes my brothers go still.
She takes three steps toward him, and even the officers seem uncertain whether to stop her. Luis’s one functioning eye widens when he sees her. “Mrs. Lopez—Isabella—I can explain—”
“Explain?” The word comes out like a whip crack. My mother stops directly in front of him, her small frame somehow radiating a fury that fills the entire space. “Explain what, exactly? How you put your hands on my daughter? How you hit her? How you tried to force her into your car?”
“She was with another man—” Luis starts, his voice taking on that pleading victim tone he does so well. “She was cheating on me, and I just wanted to talk to her—”
“Talk?” My mother’s voice rises, shaking with rage. “You hit her! You put your hands on my daughter!”
“Mrs. Lopez, please—” one of the officers starts.
My mother ignores him completely, her eyes never leaving Luis.
“I know your father, Luis. I knew your mother, God rest her soul. I know your brothers—good men, all of them. Devoted husbands. Devoted fathers. Men who would never raise their hands to a woman. And I thought—” Her voice breaks with fury and anguish. “—I thought you were like them!”
“Isabella, you know me—” Luis tries again.
“I thought I knew you!” My mother’s hands are shaking, her rosary beads rattling. “I welcomed you into my home! I pushed my daughter toward you! I told her she was being foolish, that she should marry you, that you would take care of her! And all this time—”
She takes another step forward, and this time the officers do intervene, gently holding her back. But she’s not done.
“All this time, you were stalking her? Hurting her? And I—Dios me perdone—I gave you the confidence to do it! I made her think she couldn’t come to me! I made her think I would take your side!” Tears are streaming down her face now, but the anger hasn’t left her voice.
“Mrs. Lopez, I love her—” Luis’s voice cracks. “I was just trying to make her see—”
“Love?” My mother’s laugh is bitter, broken.
“You don’t know the first thing about love.
My husband—Eve’s father—he loved me. He respected me.
He would have died before raising his hand to me.
And he did die—working to provide for us, to give us a better life.
That is love. What you did to my daughter?
That’s not love. That’s ownership. That’s control. ”
The officers have stopped trying to move Luis along, transfixed by my mother’s fury.
“I’m sorry—” Luis starts.
“You're sorry?” My mother’s voice drops to a harsh whisper. “You’re sorry you got caught. You’re sorry that boy beat you bloody. But you’re not sorry for what you did to Eve. Don’t you dare insult me by pretending otherwise.”
She takes a shuddering breath, and when she speaks again, her voice is ice.
“I want you to listen to me very carefully, Luis Sanchez. If I ever—and I mean ever—hear that you’ve come near my daughter again, if you’ve so much as looked at her, spoken to her, sent her a message, I will make sure everyone in Sunset Park knows exactly what kind of man you are.”
Luis’s face goes pale beneath the bruising. “You can't—”
“I can, and I will.” My mother’s eyes are hard.
“I’ve lived in that neighborhood for forty years.
I know every family, every shop owner, every person who matters.
Your father will know. Your brothers will know.
Father Tomás will know. Everyone will know that you’re the kind of man who beats women.
And when your father finds out? When your brothers find out? ” She lets the threat hang in the air.
In our community, in our neighborhood, reputation is everything. Family honor is everything. If word spreads that Luis is an abuser, his father—a respected man in the community—will be devastated. His brothers will be ashamed. The family name will be tarnished.
“Please—” Luis’s voice is desperate now. “Don’t tell my father. Please, Mrs. Lopez—”
“You should have thought of that before you put your hands on my daughter.” My mother’s voice is final.
“Consider this your only warning. Stay away from Eve. Stay away from my family. If I see you, if I hear about you, if your name is so much as mentioned in my presence, I will destroy whatever reputation you have left.”
She turns her back on him, dismissing him completely, and walks back to where I’m standing. The officers finally start to move Luis away, his protests and pleas echoing down the hallway as they take him to be processed.
My brothers are standing there, stunned into silence. They’ve just watched our mother—the woman who pushed me toward Luis for months, who made Sunday dinners unbearable with her insistence that I marry him—threaten to destroy his life for hurting me.
When my mother reaches me, all the fire, all the fury that animated her moments ago, drains away. Her shoulders sag. Her hands tremble as she reaches for mine. The proud, stubborn woman who always stood so straight, who never showed weakness, looks suddenly small. Fragile. Broken.
Tears stream down her face unchecked, and her voice, when she speaks, is barely a whisper.
“Mija.” The word breaks in the middle. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. Not now. Maybe not ever. But I need you to know—I never would have pushed you toward him if I had known. Never.”
Her grip on my hands tightens, and I can feel her shaking. “A mother protects her children. That’s what a mother does. And I—” Her voice cracks completely. “I failed you.”
I don't know what to say. My throat is tight, my eyes burning. This is what I wanted—for her to see, to understand, to believe me. But now that it’s happening, seeing her like this—this broken, devastated version of my mother—I feel nothing but empty and exhausted.
“Eve.” The voice cuts through the fog in my head. I turn, and my breath catches.
Caleb.
He’s walking toward me, flanked by Jake and Ethan.
His knuckles are bandaged, there’s a cut above his jaw, and his clothes are wrinkled and disheveled, but he’s here.
He’s free. His blue eyes scan the scene—my mother’s tears, my brothers’ guilty faces, the officers still escorting Luis down the hallway—before they lock onto mine.
Something in his expression makes my chest loosen, makes it easier to breathe.
He doesn’t hesitate. He crosses the distance between us in quick strides, and suddenly I’m moving, too, breaking away from my mother’s grip, from my brothers’ watchful stares.
I meet him halfway, and his arms wrap around me, solid and warm and real.
“I’m fine,” he murmurs against my hair. “It’s okay. Stop shaking.” I didn’t realize I was shaking until he said it. I press my face against his chest, breathing him in—sweat and copper and the faint scent of the cologne he wears. Proof that he’s here, that he’s okay.
“Are you alright?” I pull back enough to look at his face, at the cut on his jaw, the bruising on his knuckles. “Did they—”
“I’m fine.” His hand comes up to cup my cheek, his thumb gentle against the bruise Luis left. His eyes darken. “But you’re not.”
“I will be.”
Behind him, Jake clears his throat. “Well, this is certainly more dramatic than I expected tonight to be.”
Ethan’s gaze moves past me to where my family stands.
His expression is unreadable, but there’s something assessing in the way he looks at my brothers, then at my mother.
His eyes move back to me. “The charges against Caleb have been dropped. The security footage from the restaurant corroborated your statement. Mr. Sanchez, however, will be formally charged with assault and attempted kidnapping.”
Relief floods through me so suddenly my knees nearly buckle. Caleb’s arm tightens around me, keeping me steady. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I should be asking you that.” I gesture to his injuries. “You’re the one who got arrested.”
“Worth it.” The simple statement carries so much weight. Ethan smacks him on the back of the head without so much as one facial muscle moving. “What?” Caleb glares at him. “The fucker had it coming. You didn’t hear what he was saying to her.”
“Caleb, enough.” Ethan’s voice brooks no arguments. “Take your girlfriend home.”
Jake’s eyes widen at the word ‘girlfriend,’ and I hear murmurs from my family. Marco approaches us, my mother beside him, and I stiffen. Caleb meets his gaze and my brother holds out his hand.
“Thank you for protecting my sister.”
Caleb gives him a nod, and when he shakes his hand, my mother says quietly, “Come by for dinner someday. Eve,” her voice is hesitant before she adds slowly, “bring your young man around.” I don’t want to create a scene so I just nod.
“Come home with us, hermanita,” Marco begins, but I wrap my hand around Caleb’s.
“Not tonight. Take Mamá home. I’ll go home with Caleb.
” My voice is steadier but there is a distance that my family can clearly sense.
My older brother opens his mouth as if to argue but my mother touches his arm, shaking her head slightly.
I watch my brothers take Mamá out of the station, and my chest squeezes painfully tight.
* * *
Caleb’s brothers give us a ride to my apartment despite my our protests.
I would have preferred to drive back in Caleb’s car, but Ethan just confiscated the fob stating that neither Caleb or I were fit to drive.
Before I could figure out what was happening, Jake had us in the car and we were already on the road.
They drop us off at the entrance, the sleek black car idling at the curb.
The ride has been unnaturally quiet—Caleb staring out the window instead of his usual easy banter, while Ethan sits in silence, behind the wheel.
I catch Jake staring at me a few times through the rearview mirror, curiosity in his hazel eyes. “So you two are really dating?”
I open my mouth to say yes, but then recall that the only reason Caleb and I were pretending to date was to keep Luis away from me. And now he’s no longer around.
Caleb glances at him. “Mind your own business.”
Jake shakes his head. “Be nice to me. Or next time, I’ll let you stay overnight in a cell.”
“Jake.” Ethan’s voice has the lawyer chuckling.
They drop us off at the entrance, and as the car pulls away, Caleb and I stand in the quiet night air. His hand finds mine, and without a word, we head inside—together.