Chapter 16: The Wire
The hallway was too bright, too long. Cynna leaned into Pedro, her legs trembling not from weakness but from a furious, coiled energy. The borrowed sweatshirt from Leo swallowed her hands. The nurse at the station glanced up, and Pedro offered a practiced, easy smile. "Just stretching our legs. Five minutes." His charm, usually effortless, felt like a tool now, worn and deliberate.
The door to the roof groaned, a metal protest against the evening. The city air hit her, cool and thick with the smell of distant rain and exhaust. It was nothing like the canned, sterile breath of her room. She stumbled forward, drawn to the chain-link fence that separated her from the drop.
Los Angeles sprawled below, a galaxy of artificial light ignoring the dusk. The sun was a bloody smudge behind the haze, painting the undersides of clouds in bruised purple and gold.
For a long minute, she just breathed, the wind plucking at her hospital gown beneath the sweatshirt. Then it came, a sound that started deep in her chest and tore out of her, raw and guttural. A scream into the wind, swallowed by the city’s roar. She gripped the cold links until her knuckles blanched, shaking the fence as if she could rattle the whole skyline.
“Why?” she shouted, not turning. The word was shredded by the wind. “Why did you go see her, Pedro? After what she did. You sat in a room with her.”
Pedro didn’t touch her. He stood a few feet away, a solid silhouette against the dying light. “I told you. I had to see.”
“Bullshit!” She whirled, her eyes wild. “You had to what? Offer comfort? Tell her it was gonna be okay? She tried to erase me.”
“I know what she did!” His voice cut through hers, sharp enough to make her flinch. He ran a hand over his face, the weariness in the gesture profound. “You think I don’t feel it in my bones every second? This is my fault. I opened the door. I gave her the… the narrative. The happy family dream.”
“This isn’t about your guilt!” Cynna spat, tears streaming now, hot and furious. “This is about you and her. That bond I was never part of. Even now. Especially now.”
He moved then, closing the distance but not touching. His voice dropped, low and urgent. “It wasn’t a social call, Cynna. It was a transaction.”
She froze, searching his face. The charming actor was gone. In his place was someone harder, older. A stranger.
“The detective asked me to go,” he said, each word measured. “They had the syringe, the witnesses. They needed motive. They needed her voice saying it out loud.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket, his movements slow, deliberate. He pulled out his phone. “They wired me. A little mic taped to my chest. I sat across from her in that shitty little room and I let her talk.”
Cynna’s breath hitched. The world seemed to tilt, the city lights blurring. “You… what did you say to her?”
“I played the heartbroken friend. I said I didn’t believe she could hurt you, but I needed to understand.” His mouth twisted, a grimace of self-loathing. “I used every bit of our history, every inside joke, every tear she ever shed about wanting a baby. I opened my veins and let her bleed all over me.”
He tapped the screen, his thumb hovering over a audio file labelled HOLD - 2234. “She talked for an hour. About the pregnancy. How it felt like a sign. How when she lost it…” He met Cynna’s gaze, his own haunted. “She didn’t see it as a miscarriage. She saw it as you stealing it from her. In her mind, your doubt, your ‘negativity,’ poisoned it. Your refusal to get on board made the universe take it back.”
Cynna felt the fence at her back, the only thing holding her up. “She’s insane.”
“Yes,” Pedro said simply. “But it’s a meticulous insanity. Listen.”
He played the recording.
The first voice was Pedro’s, filtered but recognizable, thick with feigned confusion. “I just don’t get it, Maya. Cynna’s in a coma. They’re saying it was intentional. Help me understand.”
A long sigh. Then Maya’s voice. It wasn’t the shrill scream from the ER. It was calm, melodic, almost conversational. “You never saw it, P. You see the best in everyone. But she was always… a barrier. To us. To our family. Even before the baby. She’d give you that look when we’d talk too long. She’d make plans on the weekends we usually had brunch.”
“That’s just life, Maya. That’s not a reason to—”
“It was a thousand little cuts!” Maya’s voice sharpened, then smoothed again. “And then the baby… my baby… our baby… she killed it with her energy. I knew then. She would always be there, standing between us. Between me and my real family. The family I was supposed to have with you.”
On the recording, Pedro’s voice, coaxing: “So what did you think would happen?”
A pause. The rustle of paper or cloth. “I thought the universe would correct itself. If she was gone, the balance would return. The path would be clear again. For us. I’d get another chance. I’ve planned for it, you know. For years, really. I just never had the right… catalyst. The right moment.”
The recording stopped. Pedro locked the phone, the silence that followed was more deafening than the city.
“Catalyst,” Cynna whispered. The word was ice in her veins. “She’s been thinking about this… for years.”
“The DA has it now,” Pedro said, his voice hollow. “It’s the cornerstone of their case. Premeditation. She wasn’t in a psychotic break. She was executing a plan. A twisted, fucked-up plan she’d been polishing in her head since the day we got married.”
The wind picked up, chilling the tears on Cynna’s cheeks. The grandeur of the sunset felt obscene. “You wore a wire. You got that from her.”
“I did.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“I couldn’t.” He finally reached for her, but his hand stopped short, hovering near her arm. “If I told you beforehand, you would’ve stopped me. You would’ve said it was too dangerous, or too cruel, or… I don’t know. But I needed to do something that wasn’t just sitting by your bed. I needed to get her. For you.”
Cynna looked from his tormented face down to the sprawling city, a world moving on, oblivious. The woman who brought her chicken soup when she had the flu had also, for years, imagined her disappearance. Had calculated it. Had waited for her moment.
The anger didn’t leave, but it changed shape. It melted into a cold, heavy certainty. She turned her back on the view and leaned into Pedro, not for comfort, but for stability. He folded his arms around her, holding her up as her body wracked with silent, shuddering waves.
“Play it again,” she said, her voice muffled against his jacket.
“Cynna—”
“Play the whole thing. I need to hear it all.” She pulled back, her eyes clear now, hardened like glass. “I need to know exactly who I’m going to destroy… fictionally.”
Below them, the city lights winked on, one by one, as darkness finally fell.