Chapter 4
Leo didn't answer right away. He stared at the woven pattern of the hotel rug as if the threads might spell out the words he couldn't find the courage to say. Alejandro waited, forcing himself not to push, recognizing the shuttered look in the boy's eyes—a look Alejandro had seen every morning in his own mirror back when he was a lonely, driven kid trying to outrun his past. "She got sick," Leo finally murmured, the words so quiet Alejandro had to lean in closer to catch them. "In the winter. When the wood pile ran out." Alejandro felt a physical blow to his chest, the breath rushing out of his lungs. He remembered that cabin vividly. It was a rustic, drafty place with single-pane windows that frosted over completely when the temperature dropped below zero. He had left her there, alone in the woods, miles from the nearest town. He had assumed she would pack up and go back to her family in Ohio, that she was resourceful enough to handle herself. He had never checked. He had blocked the phone numbers, changed his email, and thrown himself into mergers and acquisitions until the guilt became nothing more than a dull ache in his shoulder blades. "What happened to her, Leo?" Alejandro asked, his voice cracking slightly on the edge of the question. "She coughed a lot," the boy said, his lower lip trembling as he fought bravely against fresh tears. "Then one day she stayed in bed. She told me to take the silver thing. She said, 'If the winter gets too long, walk down to the highway. Find the big city. Find the man in the nice suit with the watch.' She gave me a picture from a magazine with your face on it. From a real estate article." Alejandro stared at him, stunned by the sheer grit it took for an eight-year-old boy to walk out of those woods, hitch rides with strangers, and navigate a sprawling metropolis barefoot until he spotted a familiar face walking into a luxury hotel. It was reckless, impossible, and heartbreakingly courageous. Maya reached out, her small fingers lightly touching the edge of Leo's dirty sleeve. Leo flinched slightly, then looked at her, his guard dropping just enough for the exhaustion to pull him under.
