Harley’s POV
We come to visit our father the first Saturday of every month.
Mateo drives, because the van is technically the shop's and he's the only one insured on it. Diego rides shotgun with his jaw set and his knee bouncing. Rafael sits behind Mateo, scrolling his phone with that permanent half-smile.
Aro presses against the window beside me, his worn sketchbook clutched to his chest like a shield, and none of us talk about where we're going because talking about it makes it real in a way that silence doesn't.
The visiting room is crowded today. Families packed along the row of partitions, voices overlapping into a low roar that bounces off cinderblock walls. Kids crying, mothers whispering, the occasional guard shifting his weight with theatrical boredom.
My father sits on the other side of the plastic, and the sight of him hits me the way it always does—a fist to the center of my chest that I've learned to absorb without flinching.
He's thinner than last month. The gray at his temples has spread, and there are new lines around his eyes that weren't there before. But his smile—that hasn't changed. Warm and steady and full of something that feels like sunlight.
"There's my girl." His voice comes through the phone receiver slightly tinny, slightly delayed, but the warmth is intact. "Tell me everything, mija. How are the grades? How's the campaign?"
"Grades are solid—top three in my class. The campaign is... progressing. I've been restructuring my platform to focus on scholarship accessibility and mental health resources, and I think it's resonating with the underclassmen."
"That's my fighter." Pride radiates from him through the plastic, through the phone line, through all the barriers they've built between us. "And the debate team? Still destroying them?"
"I placed second in the district qualifier last month. Would've been first, but the judge was a Wentworth alum who went to school with the other finalist's mother, so draw your own conclusions."
He laughs and the sound fills something hollow inside me. "Second place against a rigged system is first place in my book, you know that. You're everything I hoped you'd become, Harley. Everything and even more."
My throat tightens and the words I want to say pile up behind my teeth.
I'm tired, Papá. I'm so tired of fighting every day, of pretending I'm fine, of carrying things I can't tell anyone about.
"I miss you," is what comes out instead. Quiet, simple, true.
His expression softens into something that makes my eyes burn.
"I miss you too, mija. Every single day. But you're out there doing what I never could—building something real, something clean. You hold onto that, you hear me? Don't let anyone take it from you."
He shifts his attention to Aro, his expression softening in that particular way that always sets my brother's jaw.
"And you, m'ijo—you keep your head down, help your mamá, stay out of trouble. Let your sister and your brothers handle the big stuff. You've got time to figure things out."
It took Aro a second to suddenly explode. His hands curl into fists on the table.
"I'm done waiting." Aro’s voice cuts through the visiting room, drawing startled glances from neighboring families. ”I'm done being treated like a kid who can't handle anything.”
His knee has stopped bouncing, his whole body is rigid now, vibrating with something that's been building for months, maybe longer.
"Diego gets respect because he's dangerous, Mateo gets respect because he leads and the oldest, Rafael gets respect because he's smart and cunning—and what do I get? Nothing. I'm the brother nobody takes seriously."
"Aro, lower your voice…" Mateo starts.
"No! I'm talking to Dad, not you."
Aro leans forward, gripping the phone so hard his knuckles go white.
"I want in, Papá. I can handle it, I can prove myself if someone would just give me a chance instead of treating me like a liability. You built something with the Wolves. Let me build on it. Let me show everyone what I'm capable of—"
"Absolutely not."
My father's voice drops into something I rarely hear—cold, absolute, carved from the stone of fifteen years spent rotting in this place because of exactly the life his son is begging to embrace.
"You look at me right now, Aro. Look at where I am. This is what capable looks like when you're running with Wolves. I will not watch my son make the same mistake I made. Not you, not any of you. That conversation is over."
The silence that follows is devastating. Aro's face cycles through shock, hurt, and finally something harder—rejection calcifying into defiance.
"That's easy for you to say from in there," he whispers, and the words land like a physical blow across my father's face.
Aro shoves back from the partition, the chair scraping against concrete, and storms toward the exit without looking back. A guard steps forward, hand raised, but Mateo is already moving, catching Aro's arm, steering him toward the door with a murmured conversation none of us can hear.
The wreckage settles around us like dust after a collapse. My father stares at the empty chair where his youngest son sat, and I watch something break behind his eyes that he'll spend the next month trying to rebuild.
Then Diego turns to me. "Speaking of people trying to be something they're not..."
His voice is casual, even too casual.
"I hear you're doing real well at that fancy school. Adapting nicely. Making friends in high places, learning how to talk like them, dress like them, act like you didn't grow up eating government cheese and dodging gunshots."
"Diego, don't start."
"I'm just saying, it's impressive. How fast you're learning to leave your family behind. Two years at Wentworth and you already look at us like we're something you need to wipe off your shoe before you walk into class."
"That's not true and you know it."
"Do I?" He leans back, arms crossed, that dangerous smile spreading. "So when are you going to introduce us to your little rich boy? Your own personal golden ticket out of Southside?"
The words detonate in the visiting room and my father's head snaps toward me, surprise breaking through the grief still raw on his face. "A boyfriend?"
"It's... it's complicated, Papá. It's really not a big deal."
"Not a big deal?" Diego's grin sharpens. "The governor's son, and it's not a big deal? That's cute, Harley. Real cute."
My father's eyes stay fixed on me—searching, steady, unconvinced by my monosyllables and deflections. I feel the weight of his gaze like a hand pressing on my chest. "I'll explain everything next time, Papá. I promise."
He watches me for a long moment, then nods slowly. The trust in that nod is worse than suspicion—he believes I'll explain because he believes in me, and the guilt of that nearly buckles my knees.
Outside, the parking lot air hits my face like a slap and I round on Diego before the prison doors finish closing.
"What the hell is wrong with you? How do you even know about Tate, and why would you bring it up in front of Papá like that?!"
"Everyone's talking about it, Harley. You think Southside doesn't hear things? The Valdez girl dating the governor's golden boy—it's the funniest joke anyone's heard in years."
Diego steps closer, his amusement hardening into something uglier.
"You're parading around with some rich boy who looks at people like us like we're dirt under his shoes, and you don't think that's humiliating? For this family?” Diego steps closer, his voice dropping lower but gaining intensity. “Cats and dogs don't mix, little sister."
"You don't know anything about him.” My hands curl into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms. “You don't know anything about my life at that school, about the choices I have to make just to survive in that place.
I take a step forward, refusing to be intimidated, refusing to back down.
“So don't stand there and lecture me about humiliation when you've never set foot inside those walls."
"Rich boys don't date girls like us, Harley. They entertain themselves with us until something shinier comes along, and then they throw us away like the trash they always thought we were."
"How would you know what they're like?" The words rip out of me, propelled by a fury that's been building since the visiting room. "You've never even talked to them!"
Diego's grin turns dangerous.
"Oh yeah? Then invite your golden boy over for dinner. Let him sit at our table, eat our food, look our mother in the eye. Bet he'd shit his pants before he even stepped foot in the neighborhood."
The challenge hangs in the air between us, heavy as a thrown gauntlet. Every rational cell in my brain screams to walk away, to let it go, to refuse the bait.
But I'm a Valdez. And Valdez women don't back down from challenges.
"Fine. I'll invite him."
I hear myself say, my voice steady and sure while my stomach free-falls through the pavement.
"And when he shows up, because he will, you're going to sit there and be civil, and then you're going to apologize for every ignorant word that just came out of your mouth."
Diego's eyebrows rise, genuinely surprised. Then the grin returns, wider, more satisfied. "Can't wait, little sister."