His greatest love.

Chapter 26.

Santos leaned back in the driver's seat, the leather groaning beneath his weight as he pressed his head against the rest, eyes shut tight. Exhaustion clung to him like a second skin, but it was the heaviness inside his chest that truly drained him. His mission—his grand chance to bring Giovanni De Luca down—had ended in failure. Worse, it had ended in betrayal of the one thing he swore never to compromise: Diana.

He should have been in that hospital room, holding her hand, watching his daughter come into the world. Instead, he had been wrapped in Ashley's arms, drowning his frustration in the warmth of someone who wasn't her. And now the consequence of that weakness pressed like a blade against his ribs: Diana wouldn't even let him hold their baby.

Suddenly he felt fingers trailing his arm but his eyes still remained closed.

"Babe," she murmured, soft and coaxing, "I know what you're feeling."

His eyes stayed closed, jaw clenched. He wanted to ignore her, to push away the comfort she offered, but guilt made him mute.

"It's not your fault," Ashley continued, her voice slipping between sympathy and nervousness. "All you did was try to be there for your daughter. You can't blame yourself for how it turned out."

Santos exhaled slowly, but said nothing.

Behind them, Teresa's shaky sobs filled the silence, her crumpled tissue blotched with mascara. "She has no right to keep us away from the baby..."

Ashley's hand tightened around Santos's arm, seizing the chance to speak for him. "Exactly, Aunt Teresa! That child is my niece, your granddaughter, and Santos' daughter. Diana can't shut us out like this. It's cruel."

Teresa's voice trembled, wounded and self-pitying. "I don't understand how she became so vile. That's not the little girl I raised. I raised her to be gentle, to respect family. Now she treats us like strangers."

"She's just bitter right now. But she loves me, she always has. Diana always comes around when she sees consistency. All we need to do is show effort—keep showing up until she realizes she can't push us away forever."

Santos's grip tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles whitening. He could hear the arrogance in Ashley's tone, the way she spoke as though Diana's forgiveness was guaranteed, as though his betrayal wasn't already carved into stone. As though she could just forget everything they did to push her to this point.

"Besides we are her family, she'll need us to help with the baby because she doesn't trust anyone, so i know she will come around."

Teresa sniffled, lowering her tissue. "Then maybe I should bring her father's side of the family. If Diana won't listen to us, perhaps they'll have more sway. She won't refuse them the chance to see the baby."

That pierced something sharp in Santos. His eyes snapped open, dark and dangerous, cutting through the dim glow of the dashboard.

"None of you will see Diana," he said, voice cold, each word deliberate, "not until she's discharged and she's comfortable having anyone around her."

Ashley froze mid-stroke on his arm, blinking at him. "But babe, we can't just—"

His glare shifted to her, merciless. "End of discussion."

The weight in his voice silenced the car, choking the air into stillness. Teresa looked away, clutching her tissue tighter. Ashley recoiled, her lips parting as if to argue, then closing again under the iron in his tone.

Deep down, Santos knew why he was drawing the line—not for them, but for himself. Because Diana's threat of a lawsuit wasn't empty, and if she followed through, he risked losing everything. Not just her, but the right to even call himself a father. That was a loss he could never recover from.