She lifted her head from the floor and looked up at Santiago from where she was, still on her knees, still with her palms against the tile. The distance between his face and hers had never felt more exact.
"Please," she said again begging with all she had.
It was all she had left. She said it anyway.
But Santiago did not answer her immediately.
He watched her the way a man watches something that has moved in an unexpected direction, not with surprise exactly, but with the particular attention of someone recalibrating. His fingers tapped once against the arm of the couch, slow and deliberate, and the room stayed silent around that single sound.
One of the masked men exhaled, a short, quiet sound that carried amusement without bothering to fully become it.
"Pregnant," he repeated, as though turning the word over to examine its underside. "That complicates the entertainment."
The other tilted his head slightly, considering.
"Or improves it tremendously," he said.
