“Eventually.”
“Why?”
“Because he changed what he did.”
“Not because he said sorry.”
Isabela nodded as though this were obvious.
Then she returned to coloring.
Alejandro looked at Lucía.
“She is ruthless.”
“She gets that from your family.”
“Absolutely not.”
Lucía smiled.
The photograph remained on the table.
Alejandro looked at it.
For years, seeing that blue uniform had filled him with guilt.
Now it reminded him of something else.
Lucía’s strength did not begin when he found her.
Her dignity had never disappeared because she was cleaning floors.
The shame belonged elsewhere.
To the people who forged power into a weapon.
To the people who saw a signature and stopped asking questions.
To Alejandro himself when pride made a lie easier to believe than
uncertainty.
The Gran Imperial had looked, that first night, like a place where rich
people went to forget their problems.
Alejandro learned the opposite.
