Chapter 5 - GHOSTS IN LOGAN SQUARE
The shelter was a grim brick building with barred windows and a line of desperate souls huddled outside. The smell of bleach and unwashed bodies hit me as I walked through the double doors. I ignored the stares, marching up to the tired-looking woman at the front desk.
"I'm looking for Robert Velasquez," I said, sliding a hundred-dollar bill across the counter.
She eyed the money, then me. "Cot 42. Back corner."
I found him sitting on the edge of a thin mattress, staring at the floor. He had washed his face, but the exhaustion was etched permanently into his skin. When he saw me, he stood up abruptly, panic flaring in his eyes.
"I told you not to come looking for me," he hissed, glancing around the crowded room nervously.
"I opened the safe, Robert," I whispered.
He froze. The air between us seemed to stop moving.
"I saw the ledger. I saw my father's note to Alejandro. I saw the pictures with the sniper." Tears finally broke free, tracing hot paths down my cheeks. "Robert, I am so sorry. God, I am so sorry."
He closed his eyes, his shoulders slumping as if a massive physical weight had been dropped onto them. When he opened them, the defensive wall was gone. There was only the raw, aching love of the man I had married.
He reached out, his rough, scarred hands gently wiping the tears from my face. "You weren't supposed to know. If you didn't know, they wouldn't hurt you. Your father put everything in your name, Mariana. If the feds found out, you would have gone to federal prison. I couldn't let them take you."
"So you let them take your life instead?" I sobbed.
"My life was you," he said simply.
May you like
Before I could respond, the heavy metal doors of the shelter burst open. Two men in dark windbreakers stepped inside. They didn't look like police. They looked like cleaners. And they were scanning the room with terrifying efficiency.
Robert grabbed my arm. "They tracked you. We have to go. Now."
