Act IV – Chapter 10: "I'll Give You the World"
Late 2007, Las Vegas.
Night covered the city, but inside the private club, the lights never went out. Music, clinking glasses, crude laughter, overpowering perfume, bills changing hands.
Emilio Javier, just into his thirties, crossed the room like he owned every inch of it. Thinner, sharper than the man he'd become later, but already with that same confident smile, that same gaze that missed nothing.
The cartel guys greeted him as they stepped aside.
"Hey, Emilio!" one of his coworkers called, a young guy in a blazer. "We're grabbing a drink after this, you coming?"
"Not tonight," Javier answered with a wink. "Hoy me ocupo de mi mujer."
The others whistled and snickered.
"Little wifey comes first, huh?" one of them said.
"She's the only one who can get you home early," another mocked.
Emilio lifted his hands in mock surrender, smiling.
"What do you want me to say, guys? When you've found perfection, you take care of perfection, okay?" he joked.
They laughed again, and he left, the music fading behind him.
Outside, Vegas night burned with neon, but he walked without stopping, already focused on something other than the lights.
His apartment looked out over a neighborhood a bit removed from the Strip. No billionaire mansions, but a clean place with a view of the city—not too far from the noise, not too close either.
He opened the door.
Andrea was sitting on the couch, a book open on her knees. A Spanish student doing part of her studies in the U.S. Brown hair pulled into a bun, deep eyes, a soft face where, tonight, something had changed.
Emilio came in with the energy of someone coming off a good day.
"Buenas noches, mi amor!" he called cheerfully as he shut the door.
Andrea looked up at him.
She didn't smile back.
"Where were you?" she asked simply.
He took off his jacket and dropped it on the back of a chair.
"Work, always work, mi amor," he replied. "Business is good right now."
He leaned in to kiss her. She offered her cheek, but with no warmth.
Emilio frowned slightly.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "You look… serious."
Andrea closed her book and set it beside her. She took a second before answering.
"We need to talk," she said.
Emilio smiled, thinking he knew where this was going.
"Listen, if this is about money, you don't have to worry. Everything's rolling, de verdad. We're carving out our place. A few more years and—"
"Emilio," she cut in.
Her hand rested on her stomach without her even realizing it. An instinctive, protective gesture.
"I'm not talking about money," she said. "I'm talking about you."
He dropped into the armchair across from her with his usual mix of ease and confidence.
"Alright, then talk to me," he said with a smile. "You know I love to talk."
She didn't smile.
"You're playing with danger," she said quietly. "And I don't like it."
He shrugged, like she'd just told him he drove too fast.
"Mi amor… We live in Las Vegas in 2007. Everyone plays with danger here. At least I get paid better than most for it," he joked.
She still didn't laugh. Her gaze stayed locked on him, serious, almost worried.
"This isn't the life I want," Andrea went on.
This time, something cracked in Emilio's smile.
"So what do you want, then?" he asked, a little offended. "A simple life like your parents? Little house, little life, little boredom?"
He got up and paced a few steps, like he couldn't stay still when someone questioned his momentum.
"Mi amor, I will never settle for that," he said. "I want a life where no one ever lacks anything. Where you can chase every dream you have without worrying about a thing. A dream life… where I give you the world."
He stopped and looked at her, fired up by his own vision.
"Do you get it?" he insisted. "No more counting bills, no more crappy odd jobs, no more professors to endure. We could travel, go wherever you want. Madrid, Rome, Buenos Aires, Tokyo… I can make that happen for you."
Andrea stayed silent for a moment.
Her hand was still on her stomach.
"And at what cost?" she asked at last.
"What's going on here?" he said. "You coming at me like this because of your hormones? Put on a little weight and you're gonna blame me again, is that it?"
Andrea turned sharply.
"You're attacking my body again!" she snapped. "Is that the only thing you know how to do?"
"I'm just worried about you!" Emilio shot back, stung. "Why can't you see that?"
She stared at him, eyes shining.
"You worry about me… by talking to me like that?" she said. "You think I don't see the women around you? In your clubs, your meetings, your parties? All perfect, not a flaw, not one extra kilo."
"I don't care about them," Emilio protested. "I only care about you."
"Then why is it that every time I change, you notice before I do?" Andrea retorted. "'You lost weight, you gained weight, you look tired, you should sleep more, you should watch what you eat…' You think that helps me?"
Emilio ran a hand over his face, irritation creeping in.
"Every time you lose confidence, I'm the one who takes the hit," he said. "I just want you to be happy, Andrea. That's it. I want you to feel good, strong, healthy. Is that so wrong?"
"What's wrong is that you don't understand what it does to me," she said. "You walk around surrounded by gorgeous, confident women, and then you come home and tell me I should 'relax' about it."
She lowered her eyes for a second, then lifted them again, harder.
"I'm not invincible, Emilio. I doubt. I compare myself. And when I'm afraid of losing you… you crack jokes about my weight."
He went silent for a second. In his head, it had never been more than comments, clumsy words. He felt like he was walking through a minefield with no warning signs.
"Mi amor… It's not against you," he said finally. "When I talk about that, it's because I care. I swear I only see you, Andrea. The others are background noise."
"Well I see that background very clearly," she replied. "And it eats at me."
The argument had drifted.
From mafia danger, they'd slid into her body, her confidence, her fears. They weren't on the same topic anymore, but the wound came from the same place: Andrea didn't feel safe—neither in this world nor in her own skin.
Emilio took a step toward her, hands open.
"I just want you to be happy," he repeated. "That's all I want. I work like crazy, I take risks, I—"
"I know," Andrea cut in.
She took a deep breath.
"I know you're doing it for me too. And that's exactly the problem, Emilio."
She stepped closer and put a hand on his cheek.
"I love you," she said. "With all my heart. That's why it scares me so much. Because I see you tearing yourself apart a little more every day to build something I'm not even sure I want."
He tried to speak, to defend himself, to promise her even more.
"Andrea, listen, I—"
"No," she interrupted gently. "For once, let me talk."
He fell quiet.
"I need to think," she said. "On my own. Without you, for a while.
I need to know if I can walk the road you're paving… or if I have to take another one."
Emilio felt panic rising.
"You want to leave me?" he asked, voice lower.
"I don't know," she answered honestly. "I just know that if we keep going like this without asking ourselves anything, we're going to hurt each other. You, with your hunger to give me the whole world. Me, with my fears and my hang‑ups."
She slowly withdrew her hand from his cheek.
"I love you," she repeated. "But I'm going to take some time to think."
He wanted to argue again, to tell her they could fix it together, that she was overreacting, that they were stronger than this. His lips moved, no words came out.
Andrea grabbed her bag and coat.
"I'll come back," she said. "Or I won't. But I'd rather leave for a few days than stay here quietly resenting you without saying it."
She opened the door.
Emilio took a step toward her.
"Andrea—"
"Don't," she murmured without turning around.
The door closed behind her.
And in the apartment, for the first time in a long time, Emilio Javier was alone.
Alone with his dreams, his ambitions… and a silence that, despite all the lights of Las Vegas, suddenly felt unbearably cold.
Andrea walked for a long time, not really watching where she put her feet.
The lights slowly faded, replaced by the tired neon of Stewart Avenue. The sidewalks were dirtier, the façades more worn, the looks harder.
She stopped in front of a building door, hesitated for a second, then knocked.
Footsteps, then the lock turned.
A young woman in her twenties opened the door, hair in a ponytail, makeup a bit smeared, outfit still marked by the previous night.
"Andrea?" she said, surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"Maria…" Andrea breathed. "Can I… stay here for a while?"
Maria, who worked in clubs under the mafia's umbrella but was a close friend of Andrea's, looked her over.
"Why don't you just ask Emilio to pay for a hotel?" she said, opening the door a bit wider. "With what he makes, that's nothing to him."
Andrea shook her head.
"Emilio mustn't know," she said.
"Mustn't know what?" Maria asked.
Andrea lowered her eyes.
Her hand went to her stomach.
It took Maria a second to understand.
Then her eyes widened.
"Oh…" she murmured. "Andrea…"
She stepped fully aside.
"Come in," she said. "We'll talk later."
In the days that followed, Andrea stayed at Maria's.
Maria spent the nights in the clubs under neon and music, then came home at dawn, made coffee, slept a few hours before taking care of Andrea as best she could.
Andrea, meanwhile, spent a lot of time at the window, hand on her belly.
She imagined Emilio walking through the door, smiling, promising he would fix everything.
And every time, the same feeling: if she let him, she would never again know how to leave.
"You should tell him," Maria said one day as she picked up empty cups. "He's the father."
"If I tell him, he'll come," Andrea replied, eyes still on the window.
"So what?"
"So then… I'll never again have the courage to go," she said. "And I can barely breathe as it is, Maria."
Emilio, for his part, didn't realize right away that this argument wasn't like the others.
The first few days, he sent messages.
"We can talk."
"I'm sorry."
"I said it wrong."
"Come home, we'll figure it out."
No answer.
At Maria's, the phone buzzed on the coffee table.
Andrea watched the screen light up again and again, "Emilio" flashing every time.
"Are you going to answer?" Maria asked, sitting across from her.
"If I answer, I'll go back," Andrea murmured. "And if I go back, I'll never leave again."
"That might not be a bad thing."
"For him, maybe. For me… I don't know anymore," she said, burying her face in her hands.
She muted the sound and laid the phone face down.
He tried to call.
Went to voicemail.
Hung up.
Called again.
Andrea watched the screen vibrate each time in the quiet of the apartment.
"He's going to think you hate him," Maria said.
"It's not that," Andrea answered. "It's the opposite. It's because I love him that I'm paralyzed."
Andrea felt like each new message tightened a rope around her throat.
Emilio thought he was pushing "out of love."
She just felt the pressure rising.
He couldn't manage to "give her time" the way she'd asked.
Time, to him, was more an invisible threat than space you give someone to breathe.
Even at work, he couldn't stay focused.
In an interrogation room, facing a man who refused to talk, his phone buzzed.
He cut off the suspect's sentence mid‑betrayal, pulled out his phone.
One short message:
"Leave me alone, Emilio."
He froze.
The suspect watched him, confused.
At Maria's, Andrea had typed the message with shaking hands, then closed her eyes as she hit send.
She felt guilty… and slightly relieved, all at once.
"He's going to hate you for that," Maria said.
"He deserves better than a woman who panics every time he looks at her," Andrea murmured.
Then Emilio pocketed his phone, turned back to the man in front of him…
And beat him half to death with a physical brutality no one had seen from him before.
His coworkers started to find him distracted… and excessive.
Time passed.
Andrea gave birth in the little Stewart Avenue apartment.
It was not a magical moment, but a mix of pain, fear, exhaustion.
A few weeks later, the baby cried a lot.
Andrea tried to calm him, hands trembling, nerves frayed. Every cry made her feel judged.
Maria would pick him up, rock him, hum to him. He quieted faster in her arms.
One night, Andrea watched them from the bedroom doorway:
Maria sitting, the baby asleep on her shoulder, an exhausted but tender smile on her face.
"You see?" Andrea said later, as Maria laid the child back in his crib.
"See what?"
"You… you're good with him," Andrea went on. "Me, the second he cries, I panic. I feel like… like I mess everything up."
"You're his mother, Andrea. You're allowed to learn."
"And what if he doesn't have time to wait for me to learn?"
She wrapped her arms around herself.
"I look in the mirror and I see someone who's scared of everything. The city. Emilio. What we could become. Maria, I'm not sure I'm made to be a mother. Not now. Not like this."
Maria had no answer for that.
Emilio, meanwhile, tried so hard to get back in touch with Andrea—repeated calls, messages, showing up around her campus, questioning acquaintances—that word eventually reached the wrong people.
A judge signed a restraining order.
"Repeated contact judged intrusive."
"Harassment."
When Maria told Andrea, she sank into a chair.
"I pushed him that far," she said. "Now he's going to hate me."
"Or he'll finally leave you alone," Maria replied.
"That's the worst part," Andrea murmured. "I don't even know what I want."
The mafia boss of the time explained very calmly to Emilio that pushing further would be dangerous—for his career, his business, everything he was building.
That he was already lucky not to be officially "outed."
He swallowed that like poison.
Three years went by without news.
Emilio didn't explode all at once.
He froze.
Little by little, the easy laughter came less often.
The jokes continued, but his eyes behind them stayed cold.
He often wondered late at night, glass in hand: If I'd really given her time… would she have come back?
No answer ever came.
Meanwhile, Andrea watched the little one grow.
She loved him.
That, she was sure of.
But every time he reached out for her, something inside her tensed up, afraid of not being enough.
She'd take him anyway, hold him tight, then hand him off to Maria as soon as the anxiety rose too high.
"You're more at ease with him than I am," she said to Maria one morning.
"No, I've just dealt with people more," Maria answered.
"You're stronger than me. More stable."
She looked at her son sleeping.
"He needs someone like you, not a mother who jumps at every sound in the hallway."
Maria pressed her lips together.
One night, in one of the empire's clubs, the music was pounding. The smell of alcohol and perfume, the haze, the lights. Emilio watched the floor from a raised level, glass in hand, on autopilot.
A coworker rushed over, clearly excited.
"Hey, Emilio, you heard?" he said. "They say Andrea was spotted around here."
The glass froze in Emilio's grip.
"Where?" he asked instantly.
"In the Stewart Avenue area. A girl from the staff said she saw her walking by. With a…"
He didn't hear the rest.
He'd already set his glass down and was heading for the exit.
He ran.
Down the stairs, through the streets, along sidewalks he hadn't walked in a long time. Any shadowed corner could be the right one. Every female silhouette looked like hers from far away.
But he didn't find her.
Out of breath, he stopped at a street corner.
Maria was there, as if she'd been waiting for him.
She stepped toward him, expression complicated.
"Emilio…" she said.
"Where is she?" he asked. "Just tell me where she is."
Maria tightened her grip on something in her hand.
An envelope.
"She asked me to give you this," she said, holding out the letter.
He almost snatched it from her, fingers shaking.
He tore the envelope, unfolded the page.
Andrea's handwriting.
Impossible to mistake.
"Emilio,
I didn't know how to tell you this to your face.
I had a child from you.
But all of this is too heavy for me to carry.
The danger, the fear, this city, your business… I can't. I'm not strong enough for this life.
I've decided to leave all of this behind.
Far from you.
Far from this world.
I'm leaving everything.
I have entrusted our son to someone good.
Maybe one day you'll forgive me.
Or maybe you'll hate me until you die.
I don't expect anything anymore.
Andrea."
The lines blurred.
Rain began to fall, as if the sky had picked that exact moment to empty itself.
"No…" Emilio breathed.
He crumpled the letter in his fist.
"No. No, no, no… She can't…!"
He looked up at Maria.
"She's a coward," he shouted, voice breaking. "She's a coward! We could've just talked! We could've…!"
He screamed her name into the street.
"ANDREA!"
Maria stepped back, throat tight.
Behind her, a little boy of about two and a half—whom Emilio, in his confusion, hadn't even noticed—jumped at the sound of the shouting. Eyes wide, he clutched at Maria's skirt.
"Who is that man?" he asked, terrified.
Maria looked at him, then at Emilio in the distance, still yelling into the void.
She hesitated for a second, a dull ache in her chest.
"No one," she said softly. "No one, little Leo."
Emilio, meanwhile, kept running a few meters, spinning around, searching the darkness for a silhouette that wasn't there anymore.
In the pouring rain, he finally stopped in the middle of the street.
His hand went to his belt and grabbed his gun.
Tired of chasing a ghost, he drew it.
Pressed it to his temple.
The metal was cold.
His fingers shook.
A few seconds passed.
Raindrops traced lines down his face, mingling with tears he refused to acknowledge.
His hand finally let go.
The gun fell to the ground with a heavy thud.
Emilio collapsed to his knees, then all the way down, lying pathetic and soaked in the middle of the street, sobbing like a child no one was coming to pick up.
Much later, long after that night in the alleys of Stewart Avenue, no one remembered it anymore.
They remembered something else.
They remembered the day when, among the most influential families, a name was spoken as the new boss.
Emilio Javier.
Some said he was a genius.
Others, a madman.
Still others, suicidal, afraid of nothing.
But everyone agreed on one thing:
no one really knew what he was thinking.
And everyone trembled when they heard his name.