It is stunning, and I have been told more than once that I have no eyes for jewels. But this ring impresses even me. It is a hefty emerald, glittering in the warm light of the candelabra, such a deep, clear shade of green that it seems like it contains fire in its depth. Or maybe water. Maybe that’s what the ocean looks like, deep, deep down, where the rays of the sun barely penetrate.

Kiki’s hand trembles as she reaches for the ring, her brow pinched, her eyes blinking far too rapidly.

“Kiki, what is it? What’s wrong?”

She plucks the ring from its berth and holds it gently in the palm of her hand, as if it is something precious. Something worth far more than the value of its stone.

“This was my mother’s ring.”

And then it clicks into place. The letters. The hope etched on Rosalita’s face. The knowledge that her days of working under Doña Esmeralda’s roof were numbered.

“Alejandro was going to propose.”

Kiki responds with only a wordless nod.

“But someone made sure he didn’t.” With tremendous reverence, she places the ring back in its box. And then, with one final look, she closes the lid, shutting her eyes as if the enormity of it is too much to bear.

It wasn’t just one life cut short that night. It was two. Rosalita will never walk the path Alejandro wanted for her. She will never take his hand in marriage. She will never live under this roof, in this home. She will never know the future she dreamed of.

And we know who is to blame.

“The wolves,” I say.

Kiki opens her eyes. She nods.

“But who are they?” She places the box down on the desk, surrounded by the letters its intended wearer sent and the one Alejandro never had the chance to. “And why did they want my brother dead?”

CHAPTER 15

Ana

This is a mistake.

As I sit in Don Carlos de Sonza’s study, watching his sallow face read the letters Kiki has laid out on his desk, I cannot help but think those words over and over and over.

This is a mistake. A great, big, terrible mistake that is going to bite us in the ass.

He shakes his head in jerky starts, his jowls quivering with the motion. He has never been a healthy man, but now, after the loss of his only son, he isn’t even a shadow of his former self. It’s like someone has scooped out his insides and left him completely empty. Not a man, but a husk. The firelight from the hearth in his study casts dreadful shadows in his wrinkled face, making him look like something half-dead already.