Chapter 135

Ramon POV

“You’ll have me,” I said desperately. “Lake, you’ll have me. You’ll have our bond, our future, everything we could build together—”

“I know,” Lake said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “And I love you, Ramon. I do. But Ollie—he’s been my reason for living since the moment he was born. Before he was born, even. When I found out I was pregnant at fourteen, when everyone was telling me to get rid of it, to end the pregnancy and move on—I couldn’t. Because that baby was mine. The only thing in the world that was truly mine. And I decided right then that I would do anything, endure anything, survive anything, as long as it meant keeping him safe.”

He turned to look at Ollie’s still form, his hand reaching out to touch his son’s face gently. “When Samuel’s clients started coming around, when the men he owed money to started looking at Ollie the way they’d looked at me—I knew I had to get us out. Had to protect him from that life. So I took him to the ocea