I FELT HIM BEFORE I SAW HIM

I didn’t take the job because I needed money. I took it because one of the men inside that prison had destroyed my life. I just didn’t expect him to look at me first. The café smelled of coffee and cinnamon, the kind of warmth people paid for when they wanted to pretend everything was fine. Soft music. Low conversations. Normal life. I had worked too hard to get here. Medical school. Specialization. Internships. Years of proving I was capable of carrying more than one life on my shoulders. Not as a single woman. As a single mother. My boyfriend died in a mafia blood feud. I never said it out loud. I never had to. The words lived inside me, carved deep enough to bleed whenever I stopped moving. I found out I was pregnant after he was gone. I remembered sitting on the edge of my bed, staring at the test in my shaking hands, knowing he would never know he had a child. I chose to keep the baby. I chose to live. I chose to raise my child alone. Across from me, Bianca watched me stir my coffee too slowly. “You’re really doing this,” she said. “Prison psychology. Among criminals.” “I already signed the contract,” I replied calmly. “You could’ve chosen something normal,” she insisted. “A clinic. A hospital. A life without—” She stopped herself. “You know what I mean.” Normal. The word tasted like something I’d never had. “This is exactly why it’s perfect,” I said. “Where else could I practice medicine, psychology, and psychiatry all at once?” Bianca didn’t know why I took the job. She didn’t know who the father of my child was. She didn’t know that one of the men responsible for my loss was still alive. And locked behind bars. “I’ll make him suffer,” I said quietly, tightening my grip on the cup. “The way I suffered.” Bianca leaned closer, lowering her voice. “Barbara… there are men in there who kill without blinking.” “I know.” She hesitated. “Did you hear Santiago is in that prison too?” The name slid through me like cold metal. “So?” I said, too quickly. “The most dangerous man on the planet,” she whispered. “That’s what they call him.” I scoffed. “I don’t believe myths.” Bianca squeezed my hand. “You’re walking straight into fire.” I squeezed back. “Danger is exactly what I’m counting on.” Because somewhere behind concrete walls and steel doors, there was a man who deserved to be forgotten. And I was about to learn that forgetting was the one thing he would never allow.