Cruz:
“I love you, mi reina.”
I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
Hell, I hadn’t even realized the words had been clawing their way up my throat until they were already hanging in the air—fragile, dangerous, real.
But once they were out, it felt like something inside me cracked wide open.
Like everything I’d been holding back—every storm, every unspoken truth—had been reduced to those five little words.
I love you, mi reina.
Not a phrase I ever thought I’d say.
Not in this life.
Not in mine.
But she made it impossible not to.
Avery.
My Avery.
The woman who walked into this world with soft hands and sharp eyes, all strength disguised as fragility, and somehow carved her name into my chest without ever asking permission.
She didn’t say anything.
Didn’t breathe a word.
Just… ti
