People think the rich live in warm houses.
That night, the Montiel mansion was warm in the way a display case is warm—perfect lighting, spotless marble, designer candles flickering like tiny trophies. But Rosa sat on the kitchen floor, clutching the baby to her chest, and she’d never felt colder in her life.
But because of what she’d just seen.
“Please,” she whispered into the soft curve of Santi’s head. “Come on, sweetheart… wake up.”
The baby didn’t cry.
That was the terror.
Santi was usually loud. Not spoiled-loud—newborn-loud. The kind of cry that demanded the world show up and do its job. But now, his tiny body felt too still, too heavy in her arms, as though his spirit had stepped away for a moment and forgotten to return.
Rosa gently tilted him, searching for the familiar signs that he was okay, that this was just sleep.
But his eyelids didn’t flutter.
His fingers didn’t curl.
She leaned close, pressing her ear to his chest.
There was a heartbeat.
Thank God, there was a heartbeat.
But it didn’t sound like a baby’s heartbeat should. It was distant. Slow. Like it had to remember how to keep going.
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