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I glanced up at him.

He didn’t say it. He didn’t have to because the set of his mouth told me I had no choice.

I shook my head.

“I can’t leave him.”

“Go, mi niña, my daughter.”

A sob caught somewhere behind my ribs.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“My daughter,” he said again.

He drew a shallow breath that ended in a wet cough.

He’d always called me mi niña, but never daughter—my heart stuttered.

“Daughter?” I asked in confusion.

“Yes.” His voice was barely more than air. “My daughter. Truly.”

I didn’t understand.

The courtyard disappeared.

The gunfire.

The shouting.

Even the blood beneath my hands blurred.

“What? I don’t understand.”

Rafael swallowed.

“Ciro was never your father.”

The words made no sense, and all I could do was stare at him.

“What are you talking about?”

“I am your father.”

My pulse raced as the edges of my vision began to darken. A hundred thoughts and questions came at once, leaving me unable to ask any of them.

“No,” I gasped.

Not denial, not exactly, just the only word I had.

“You are my daughter.”

My lower lip trembled as the realization washed over me.

Lachlan went completely still. His eyes met mine, and the grief on his face hit almost as hard as the word daughter. He knew what I was being given and what I was about to lose.

I turned back to the man who had always been there, only now understanding who he had really been to me.