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Kelsey lifted her hands higher. "Please, don't."
The woman, Vanessa, Carlos had said, flicked her gaze to Carlos.
Kelsey looked, too. Wished she hadn't. Carlos was twitching, struggling for breath. Blood seeped from the wound on his back. It pooled on the concrete from the second bullet wound.
She forced her gaze back to Vanessa. "I'm a victim, just like you." Kelsey's voice was shaky. Eric was gone, but Daniel... She could see her son again. Be with him again. If only she could survive this. "I just wanted to be free of Carlos. You can understand that, right? I ran away."
The woman still said nothing. Her eyes were focused, thinking hard.
"I'm a victim," Kelsey said again. "Like you."
Carlos's breath rattled. Stilled. Rattled again.
"I am giving him an heir." Vanessa lifted her chin, scowled at Carlos. "I tried to prove to him that he needed me. Now I don't need him. I will take his money. I will have what he had. And I do not wish to fight you for it. My child will not be second to yours."
"But you don't understand." Kelsey took a deep breath. She had to keep her words slow, steady, confident. "The child I gave birth to isn't Carlos's."
Vanessa narrowed her eyes. "You are lying. He said the child was his."
"I lied. If he'd known... You know how he is. I was pregnant, he would have killed me if he'd known the truth. He's jealous, passionate. I feared for my child, and I was trying to rescue my sister."
Vanessa tilted her head to the side. "Whose child is it then?"
She took a deep breath, spoke the truth, the words she'd never allowed herself to say. "He is my husband's son."