The ivory card sat on the wooden counter like an unexploded bomb. Paulina’s hands shook as she dropped it back onto the surface, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and disbelief.

Three months later, the rain over Chapultepec Forest had given way to brilliant golden sunlight.

The café in Condesa was thriving, but I wasn't working behind the espresso machine anymore. I was sitting at a shaded outdoor table, watching a little boy in a neat navy-blue suit chase a golden retriever across the grass, laughing with pure, unadulterated joy.

Footsteps approached. A shadow fell over the table.

I looked up to see Santiago standing there, wearing a simple dark jacket, no bodyguards in sight. He looked relaxed for the first time since I had ever met him.

He slid a small, familiar velvet box onto the wooden table next to my coffee cup.

“What’s this?” I asked with a smile, raising an eyebrow.

“An exception,” Santiago replied, pulling out the chair opposite me and sitting down. “My mother insists that you officially join the family business. Though I prefer to think of it as a permanent merger.”

I opened the box. Inside lay a delicate silver pendant shaped like a small tree, intertwined with the initials S and L.

“You know,” I said softly, leaning back in my chair and studying the most feared man in Mexico City with a teasing smile, “when you first looked at me in the park, I thought my life was completely ruined.”