Silence followed.
Luciano tilted his head. "What's the right question?"
Don Alejandro's eyes moved toward the dark window, not toward them, but toward the night where the helicopter had vanished. "Not why he came." A pause. "But why he left in such haste."
That silenced everyone. Because suddenly that did feel like the real question. What had been urgent enough to bring Santiago here, and urgent enough to send him rushing back?
No one answered. Because no one knew.
And in that room, beneath old chandeliers and the portraits of dead Torres Mendozas staring down from carved walls, there were things the family could imagine, and things they could not. They could imagine Santiago at war. They could imagine him destroying rivals. They could imagine him returning at midnight with blood on his cuffs and silence in his mouth. That was the man they knew.
But Santiago Torres Mendoza holding a baby in his arms, that belonged to another universe. It was beyond belief.
