Page 88 of Corrupting Camille
“She will,” I answer flatly.
Diego laughs softly, bitterly, shaking his head. “We all say that shit. Until the day you realize you’ve dragged her down so deep she can’t find the way back up.”
I drain the last drops, glass clinking hard onto the table. “She walked into my world willingly.”
Diego’s eyes sharpen, darkness swimming in his gaze. “Maybe. But did she see the blood underneath? Did you show her all the graves buried beneath your empire?”
He stands slowly, heavily, crossing to the window to peer into the street before letting the curtain fall back into place. His voice is softer now, carrying the weight of something ancient and tragic.
“You remember Esperanza Vargas?”
My chest tightens instantly. A ghost resurrected from old wounds. Before Rosa.
“Yeah,” I rasp.
He nods once, slow. “She was my fire.”
Turning around, his face is etched deep with regret, pain sharp and raw behind his eyes.
“And I buried her.”
The room seems to darken, the shadows pressing closer. He continues, voice rougher, frayed at the edges.
“She loved me,” he whispers hoarsely, “Loved me through the raids, through interrogations, even after they clipped her brother just to hurt me. Love didn’t protect her, hermano, it branded her.”
He pauses, gaze boring into mine.
“And obsession…it branded me.”
I stay quiet, tension coiling tighter inside my chest, teeth grinding together painfully.
“I see it,” Diego says finally, his voice flat, mercilessly gentle. “You think you’re in control, but this isn’t chess.”
My reply is barely audible, “It’s always chess.”
Diego crosses back to me, gripping my shoulder firmly.
“No, Kane,” he murmurs. “Chess has fucking rules.”
He holds my stare another beat, then releases me.
His words linger heavy in the silence until the hallway lights flick on abruptly. Small feet pound over tile floors, the slam of the screen door jolting the stillness like a storm.
A familiar voice shatters the silence:
“¡Tío Kane!”
Lucía.
Diego’s youngest daughter.
Fourteen years old, going on forty.
She charges into the room like a hurricane made human. Curls bouncing, attitude sharp, wearing a worn t-shirt that says Latina & Legendary and mismatched socks. She’s clutching a glitter-covered binder in one hand and a pair of flip-flops in the other.
“¡NO TE VAYAS!” she barks. Don’t you dare leave.
Don’t leave.
