You’re standing in Antonio Nolasco’s penthouse office when he says it, and the room feels like it’s made of glass for a reason. Everything shines, everything reflects, everything looks clean enough to hide what people do in it. Marble floors, steel edges, the city pinned under the windows like a trophy he paid for. You’re holding a pregnancy test in your purse as if a thin piece of plastic can hold you together. Your hands tremble anyway, but you try to smile because you still believe the version of him that traced constellations down your spine in hotel rooms. You still believe the man who said you were different, that with you he didn’t have to perform. Then he turns toward the skyline and speaks without looking at you, like he’s approving a budget. “Get rid of it,” he says. “I don’t want a child.”
The words don’t just hurt. They seal. They slam shut inside you like a steel door, and you can feel the click in your chest. You wait for him to blink, to soften, to realize he just called a life “it.” But Antonio doesn’t blink. He reaches for his desk drawer, pulls out a check, and slides it across the table with a gesture so neat it looks practiced. Six zeros. The exact number he thinks can scrub the future off your body. “There,” he adds, voice calm like a quarterly report. “It covers the procedure, your move, and whatever you need to start over. Far. Quiet. No scandal.”
