Camila Reyes’s sharp voice cut through the silence inside the armored SUV. Alejandro Torres reacted on instinct, slamming his foot down. The tires shrieked against the cracked pavement of a rural Texas highway, dust swirling around the glossy black vehicle.
“Look,” Camila snapped, leaning across the dashboard, her lips curling. “It’s that pathetic woman… your ex-wife.”
Alejandro turned toward the shoulder of the road.
And everything inside him froze.
A few yards away, beneath the punishing midday sun, stood Isabella.
Not the vibrant woman he had once adored. Not the graceful wife he had proudly walked beside at charity galas. The figure before him looked worn down by survival itself: faded clothes, sandals nearly torn through, her dark hair loosely tied back, skin reddened by heat, exhaustion carved deep into her features.
But it wasn’t the poverty that made his pulse stumble.
It was what she carried.
Two tiny infants were strapped against her chest in cloth slings. Twins. Fragile, barely more than newborns. They slept despite the heat, their small faces shaded by knitted caps. And even from the distance, Alejandro saw it clearly—
They were blond.
They were his.