CHAPTER 191

That evening, Carmen was at home, taking care of baby Laura. The two of them were alone, with Johnny taking the rest of the family and all of the Miyagi-Dos to a celebratory meal. It was their first full day back in the Valley, so it was time to celebrate their incredible win at the Sekai Taikai. Although they hadn't taken a clear sweep of all divisions, and only 2 of their 8 fighters actually walked away with trophies, that didn't take away from the joy that the rest of them felt.

They had all had a hand in the victory. Win together; lose together. That was the phrase, wasn't it? And while it was normally said with the emphasis on the losing side, it was also the case for the winners too. Neither Johnny nor Robby would've even come close to winning the tournament if it hadn't been for the help of the rest of the dojo, and that fact was tangible. Johnny and Daniel had fought plenty of times in the past, but it was only when Johnny was able to learn from Miyagi-Do and learn from his son that he managed to beat him. And Robby had taken nothing but heavy losses to Marcos all year in the leadup to the tournament, and it was only the blood, sweat and tears that he had poured in, as well as all of the help that he had gotten from every member of the dojo, that he managed to beat him this time and win his first tournament.

Johnny and Robby were World Champions. The champions of their dojo. There was nothing being taken away from that. But the fact that all of Miyagi-Do had had a hand in the victory meant that they were all able to celebrate together without any resentment, despite the disappointing results that some of them had taken.

Carmen couldn't be happier for them. She was on top of the world again. Not only was she delighted for what Johnny and Robby and their dojo had achieved, but everything else in Carmen's life was better than it had ever been. It was almost unrecognizable from 2 years ago, when Miguel was injured, she was drowning in debt and their family was on the verge of collapse. Now not only were things better on the work front, but she was married and raising a baby with her incredible husband. She was surrounded by loved ones, not fearing for her own safety and her child's safety like she had been back in Ecuador.

She walked around the apartment, cleaning the inevitable mess that came from taking care of a newborn, gently humming to herself, when all of a sudden, there was a loud rap on the door.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Carmen's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Who on Earth could this be? They weren't exactly the type of family who knew a ton of people, and everyone they knew well in the city were currently at dinner with Johnny and the others.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

"Just a second!" Carmen called, putting down her cleaning cloth, her eyes flickering to Laura, who was still soundly asleep in her crib. Making as little noise as she could so as not to wake her up, Carmen walked over to the door and opened it. When she saw who was standing there, her heart stopped…

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"Hello, Carmen." For the first time in almost 20 years, Carmen found herself face to face with her ex-husband. What the hell was he doing here?! How had he managed to find them?! The man didn't seem pleased at all to see her, not a huge surprise given the history between the two of them, and the death glare on his face immediately put Carmen on high alert.

Fearing for her safety and for the safety of the child in the next room, Carmen opened her mouth to scream for help but before she could, Hector silenced her with the opening of his coat to reveal a firearm in his jacket.

"Say a word and I shoot you and the child inside." Hector growled quietly but menacingly. As Carmen scowled back at him, she obeyed, petrified for Laura's safety right now. As she stood in the doorway, face to face with the man who had scarred her and her family so deeply, forced her to spend years after they fled looking over her shoulder to make sure he hadn't found them. Well he had found them now, and somehow he had even found out about Laura! What the hell was going on?!

As Carmen's heart pounded like a bass drum, she tried desperately to get out of the situation. She tried to lunge backwards and slam the door shut before Hector could enter the house, before Hector could get to Laura. But she was too slow. As she tried to shut the door in his face, Hector caught her before she could, blasting the door open with all of his might, causing her to stumble backwards and allow Hector to walk into the house, closing the door behind him.

"Carmen… Carmen… Carmen… you really didn't think you'd be able to hide from me forever, did you?" Hector remarked as he walked further into the house.

"What are you doing here, Hector? I have nothing for you." Carmen said. Hector shook his head, chuckling mirthlessly as he did so.

"Really? You have nothing for me?" He snapped. "Carmen, you took everything from me! My whole life! You left in the middle of the night! No warning! Nothing! 4 years together, a marriage, and a pregnancy you didn't even tell me about, and you just leave!"

"I protected my family, Hector." Carmen shot back. "You lied to me. Don't you remember?! For a whole year, you told me that you were working night jobs as a security guard at the port! You didn't tell me that what you were guarding was the criminal activities of the cartel!"

"I did what needed to be done to put food on the table for my family." Hector responded through gritted teeth. "Our family! You and I! Because in case you've already forgotten, when you and I got married, your mom kicked you out the house! She threw you out onto the streets when she heard you were getting married at 18! You were going to nursing school, so it was up to me to pay all of the bills! Up to me to make sure we still had food and electricity!"

"Hector, you hurt people!" Carmen shouted.

"You think I WANTED to do any of that?!" Hector bellowed, his face darkening with fury. "You think I went to bed every night, dreaming of the next person I was going to hurt?! NO! It was a fucking job! Nothing more! Nothing less! It was a way of making sure my family was taken care of!"

"Hector, you could have talked to me. You could have let me know what was going on. We could've found another way to earn enough money for our family that wasn't this." Carmen murmured. Hector scoffed.

"What kind of a job? Washing cars? Wiping tables at a restaurant? Not all of us have the luxury of a university degree." Hector spat. "The cartel gave me money. They gave me the peace of mind that no matter what, my family was never going to go hungry."

"And in the process, you sold your soul to them!" Carmen exclaimed. "Nothing is worth that, Hector. No amount of money in the world. I would've been okay living in a cupboard, if it was living with the husband I married. Not the Ecuadorian cartel member you became."

Once again, Hector couldn't help but let out a mirthless, unamused laugh at this comment.

"You're a hypocrite, you know?" Hector remarked. "You paint me like I'm some kind of monster, but I guarantee that in my position, you would have done the same thing!"

Carmen shook her head.

"That's where you and I are different, Hector. I never would hurt someone to serve my own interests." She stated. Hector raised an eyebrow.

"Really? Not even for someone you love?" He asked. "You know, your son came to see me in Mexico last summer."

"I know." Carmen murmured, slightly confused at the sudden change of subject. "So what?"

"Well… at the time, as I'm sure you're well aware, I didn't even know I had a son." Hector remarked. "Conveniently, someone forgot to mention that to me. I wonder who it was."

"I did that for his safety, Hector. I did that because I know the type of man you are now. I know what you might do to him, how you might corrupt him, if you knew he was yours." Carmen stated. Hector scoffed again.

"Exactly. You were worried about me 'corrupting' him. You hid him away for your own interests, didn't even give him the chance to get to know me. You were worried that one conversation with me, and he would realize that I'm not the monster you and him thought I was. I'm not the asshole who abandoned his son. Nor am I the cartel gang member who gets off on violence. I'm a man who would do anything for his family. Anything at all for them. At least I was."

At that moment, Hector stepped further into the room, closer and closer to the baby's crib that Carmen was protecting. She put herself between him and the baby, trying desperately to shield Laura from him at all costs, but failing as Hector opened his jacket once more and revealed the gun.

"Move." Hector demanded. Just a simple word, dripping with malice, and Carmen knew that she had no choice but to obey. This wasn't just some anger-fueled idiot. This was the most dangerous man she had ever met in her life. Someone who had successfully duped her for almost an entire year, hiding the fact that he worked for the cartel and was making his money wreaking havoc on innocent lives. She knew that this man wouldn't hesitate to shoot both her and Laura if he lost his cool, so Carmen had little choice but to allow him past her and allow him to walk over to the baby's crib.

Hector smiled down at the sleeping baby, stroking her cheek gently, before turning back to Carmen.

"You know, we're all born like this?" Hector told her. "Pure. Innocent. Clean slates."

Carmen's heart raced faster and faster as now there was nothing separating Hector from the person she loved most in the world.

"But…" Hector continued. "As we grow up, as we begin to face just how cruel and evil this world can be, our bodies begin to fill with hatred. It starts slowly. Gives you a false sense of security that you're going to be able to control it. But sure enough, one day, just like that, it takes over. All it needs is that one trigger. It only takes a match to set an entire forest alight. Before you know it, you've lost any kindness, any sense of humanity you have left in you. That hatred wraps around your heart; it wraps around your brain too, taking control over your entire body."

"Hector, I know that you've been through a lot. And I am truly sorry for that. But…"

"For me, it began when I was a kid." Hector continued, completely ignoring Carmen's interjections. "I would look to my left, I would look to my right, and I would see injustice all around me. Everyone I knew - family and friends - worked their asses off, barely making enough to survive. I remember seeing my mom coming home after a 14 hour day and shaking her head, telling us that she hadn't made enough money today for dinner. That we would have to go to bed hungry. I remember the night when my mom sat me down and told me that we didn't have enough money to make rent, so we'd have to move out of our house, and we ended up on the streets for 6 months. And the worst part… none of it was our fault. 14 hours and still not enough for food?! It was corrupt! It was injust!"

"It was. I know." Carmen nodded. Hector sighed.

"Slowly but surely, I found myself feeling that hate beginning to take over. I found myself wanting revenge on the entire world. I could feel my humanity slipping away. And then just as I was about to give up entirely, all of a sudden, I'm saved by this incredible woman who completely changed my life. She reignited my faith in this world. She showed me that no matter what the world throws at you, no matter the injustices or catastrophes, there was still something to cling onto to keep that love, keep that kindness alive inside me."

Carmen didn't say a word as she listened to Hector talk about when the two of them had met as teenagers. She remembered it vividly: how he had been from the roughest part of their city, while she had come from a slightly wealthier part, but somehow had found each other and fallen in love."

"That woman was an angel." Hector stated. "I would've opened a vein in my arm if I knew that I could bleed out whatever she desired. And yet… I found myself failing her. She sacrificed everything for me, her whole life, put me before her family, and I was about to disappoint her with the same shitty life I had been forced to live up until I met her. I wasn't going to let that happen. I was going to give her the life she deserved. I was going to be the husband and later the father that she deserved. No matter what it took, no matter the personal cost on me, I was going to do it."

As Hector said this, his eyes flickered to the mantle, where he spotted a photo of Miguel.

"But then… all of a sudden, completely out of the blue, she leaves. She vanishes. Takes her mom with her and flees the country, without me knowing where she was, or even if she was still alive." Hector stated. "All of the sacrifices I made for her turned to nothing. The same woman who had restored my faith in humanity ended up burning it all down until there was absolutely nothing left."

"Hector, I'm so sorry." Carmen whispered. "I didn't know…"

"Yeah! You didn't! But even if you did know, you wouldn't have cared! As soon as I didn't fit the picture of the perfect life you imagined for yourself, you turned on your heel and ran. Like a selfish bitch, you didn't give a shit about all of the sacrifices I had made for us, you didn't care about how much I loved you! Well guess what, Carmen? That humanity that you helped me restore… it's all gone now. When I wake up, all I ever feel is pain and desire for revenge, so I am going to truly, truly enjoy this. You took everything from me. So now… now, I'm going to take everything from you."

Once again, Carmen didn't have a chance to shout and scream for help, as before she could, Hector lunged at his ex-wife, wrapping his hands around her neck and squeezing like a boa. She thrashed and squirmed in his grip, but couldn't fight her way out. The last thing Carmen saw before she blacked out were his eyes… the eyes that had once been filled with love and affection were now black with loathing. But suddenly, as she saw this, black spots began to dance upon her own eyes and she faded from consciousness.

With Carmen out, Hector let her fall to the floor in a heap, her faintly rising and falling chest being the only indication that she was alive. He then turned towards the crib, where now Laura had finally awakened and was wailing loudly.

Glaring at the baby - a representation of the life that Carmen had stolen from him - he pulled out his phone and dialled Silver's number.

"Is it done?" Silver asked immediately as he answered the phone.

"I have the kid." Hector informed him.

"Excellent." Silver replied. "Felipe is doing the same with the girl right now, so take the steps we talked about and meet at the rendezvous point."

Hector nodded and hung up, before reaching into the crib and carrying the baby out, walking out the door and leaving the unconscious mother behind him…