7: Catalina

One full week.

Seven days of the same four walls, the same rattling air conditioner, and the same thin curtains that did absolutely nothing to block the camera flashes outside. Catalina had stopped counting the exact number of times she looked through slits in the curtains. The photographers had thinned out after the first three days, but a stubborn handful still lingered on the sidewalk like they had nothing better to do with their lives.

She had learned their faces by now. One man always had a camera hanging around his neck. A woman with oversized sunglasses somehow never seemed to leave. Two younger photographers kept pretending they were just passing by whenever Catalina looked through the window.

They were ridiculous.

And Catalina was losing her mind.

She sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor at four in the morning, a half-empty bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos beside her and her laptop open on her lap. Printed articles and photographs covered every surface she could reach, while empty coffee cups sat in a small graveyard near the wall.

The investigation board still dominated the space behind her—ASHFORD written in bold letters at the center, her mother's faded photograph pinned beside old hospital records, timelines, names, addresses, company records, and years of research she had collected piece by piece.

But a new cluster of pages had joined the mess over the past week.

LEON VARELLI.

Every public article about him read like a carefully written press release.

Billionaire philanthropist. Real-estate visionary. Generous donor to children's hospitals and hurricane relief. Endless community projects.

Catalina clicked through one article after another, finding the same polished photographs and carefully worded descriptions of a man who seemed to have been manufactured for public consumption.

There were no childhood interviews. No family profiles that went deeper than controlled statements. Scandals that had once existed seemed to disappear, followed by sudden silence from the journalists who had started them.

Catalina had spent years learning how powerful people buried things. Years of chasing the Ashford family had taught her that lesson the hard way.

She leaned closer to the screen and opened yet another tab.

Nothing useful.

She knew what the streets whispered about Leon. Everyone did.

But proof was something else entirely.

People left traces. They made mistakes and got careless. Somebody always knew something.

Yet somehow, Leon's public life was almost unnaturally clean.

“Searching this man is exhausting,” she muttered, throwing another Dorito into her mouth.

The bedroom door opened.

Elena stood there in an oversized T-shirt, her hair piled messily on top of her head. She looked at Catalina, then at the laptop, and finally at the almost-empty Doritos bag.

“Why are you doing the serial-killer stare at four in the morning, Cati?”

Catalina lifted her head. “What serial-killer stare?”

“That one.” Elena pointed at her. “The one where you look like you're deciding where to bury somebody. It's four in the morning, Cati. You have an anatomy test in a few hours.”

“I’m doing it online anyway,” Catalina muttered, reaching into the Doritos bag and finding another chip. “Like every other assignment this week.”

She shrugged.

“¡Es una pesadilla! This is a nightmare. There’s nothing real on this man. Just money and smiles for the cameras.”

She cursed under her breath and clicked furiously through another search.

Elena already knew the rest.

They had talked about it on the second night of the siege, when Catalina had finally said out loud what she had been turning over in her head since the old broadcast of Leon's reward resurfaced.

Leon believed—or wanted to believe—that she was somehow connected to the girl who had saved him.

And Catalina was seriously considering playing along.

“You're still thinking of doing this?” Elena asked.

Catalina looked up. “Yes, of course.”

Elena snorted. “And now you're plotting.”

Catalina smiled faintly. “I'm always plotting.”

“That is exactly what worries me.”

Elena stepped farther into the room and nudged a stack of papers away from the edge of the bed.

“What exactly are you hoping to find?” she asked.

“Something real.”

“About Leon?”

“Yes.” Catalina turned back to the screen. “I can't walk into his life unprepared. I need to know what I'm walking into.”

Elena raised an eyebrow. “And you've found nothing so far.”

“Exactly.” Catalina stared at the screen. “That bothers me.”

“We should really focus on our predicament right now and find a way out of this, Catalina.” Elena sighed. “We don't have much groceries left. How are we supposed to survive being trapped in this house?”

Catalina dropped her head back against the side of her bed.

“We're starving. And Marcus can't even send anything to us. Do we really not have other friends who can help?”

“Unfortunately, we're stuck in here together, Cati.” Elena sighed as she climbed onto the bed.

Catalina looked toward the thin curtains. She knew the damned journalists were still camped outside, waiting for something to flash their cameras at.

A whole week.

They had missed clinicals, missed shifts at Verve, and she had barely been outside long enough to breathe fresh air without somebody shouting her name. Even getting groceries had become a problem.

Their apartment no longer felt like a home. It felt like a box with cameras pointed at it.

Catalina closed the laptop harder than necessary and stood.

“I can't do another day of this.”

She unclipped her mother's necklace and stared at it for a long moment.

“This is what's causing all of this.”

She threw it into a drawer.

Elena watched her for a moment before sighing. “You're going out?”

“I'm going out once the day breaks to get groceries. We've missed classes and shifts. How are we supposed to pay bills sitting like ducks in here?”

She picked up a dart from the floor and threw it. It landed squarely in the picture of Andre Ashford, sticking through his face.

Catalina groaned and flopped onto the bed beside Elena.

“This is a nightmare, and I'm so tired…”

She was already drifting to sleep, her body finally shutting the world out.

By ten in the morning, Catalina walked into the living room with dark bags beneath her eyes.

She moved through the small apartment with a sour expression, tossing empty cereal cartons and slamming the fridge door when she couldn't find any milk.

She was getting seriously pissed at being trapped inside, and Elena knew better than to comment when Catalina emerged from her room wearing loose jeans, a white crop top, black open-toe wedges, and a white baseball cap with her hair stuffed underneath.

Her own version of a disguise.

She headed for the door.

“You look like you're about to start a fight,” Elena said from the doorway.

“Good.” Catalina's mouth twitched. “Maybe they'll finally leave us alone.”

Elena sighed and sat on the couch. “Don't get arrested.”

Catalina smirked and left the apartment, banging the door a little harder than necessary.

The hallway was quiet. Catalina walked downstairs and stepped out into the morning.

Two photographers were still waiting across the street. The moment they saw her, their cameras came up.

She didn't flinch.

She walked straight down the sidewalk, chin held high, and when one of them called her name, she lifted both middle fingers without breaking stride.

“Fuck off,” she said. “Go find actual news. Puta.”

They still followed her, firing ridiculous questions that made her roll her eyes so hard she thought they might get stuck.

“Catalina! Are you dating Leon Varelli?”

“Did Leon pay for your apartment?”

“Are you the woman from Verve?”

She kept walking.

One photographer followed her farther than the others, and Catalina finally spun around.

“¡Váyanse a la verga!” she snapped. “Go to hell. Go bother somebody else.”

The photographer stood there, visibly shocked at her outburst. Catalina gave him one last glare before turning the corner.

Her anger was still burning when she saw it. The black sedan, parked half a block away.

She slowed.

She knew that car.

The same one that had sat outside their building in the days before the media storm.

Catalina stopped.

The photographers were still following her, but her attention had shifted completely to the sedan.

Suspicion cut through the leftover anger. She walked directly toward it and knocked aggressively on the tinted window.

“Roll your fucking window down, bitch! Tell me why the hell you're following me everywhere!”

She continued knocking until the rear window finally rolled down.

Leon Varelli sat in the back seat, watching her, his hooded eyes steady on her as his lips lifted in a smirk.

“Hello, Catalina.” His voice was smooth.

Catalina's jaw dropped.

The next curse died in her throat as she froze, her hand still raised in midair, positioned for another knock.