“Are you afraid?” he whispered, his broken Spanish laced with menace. “Don’t be. This is how it always starts.”
I stumbled backward, heart hammering in my chest, my body screaming to run. But the room seemed to shrink around me, suffocating, gold around my neck suddenly feeling like chains.
“Your family wanted this life, didn’t they?” he said. “The gold, the wealth… you just have to adjust.”
Adjust? Adjust to fear, to nightmares, to a life that wasn’t mine? My brain could not comprehend. I turned to flee, but he rose with unnatural speed, shadowing me like a predator.
I flung open the door, ran down the hallway, ignoring the gasps of the hotel staff. Every step pounded in my ears. I didn’t stop until I reached the street, lungs burning, chest tight, heart racing. Neon lights blurred, but I didn’t care. The life my cousin promised me—the gold, the luxury, the dream—was a gilded cage, and I had narrowly escaped.
