Chapter 1 – Noa
EIGHT WEEKS LATER
I can feel the way the silk clings too tightly, intent on squeezing the life right out of me; each breath is a battle against the boning of the corset as it is.
But the woman in the mirror looks pristine.
What a flawless complexion. Long, impeccable mascara-dark lashes framing empty eyes.
At least her dark hair is tucked into a woven braid, in a crown around her head.
Will anyone miss the irony? There are always fools only at a wedding for cake, I suppose.
Most will not notice that her lips are the color of the blush-hued chrysanthemums I’d placed atop my father’s casket before they’d lowered it into the ground six weeks ago.
This woman is someone I can’t bear to keep looking at—someone trapped, bound in white satin and lace.
I turn away, looking aimlessly around this room, smothered by the perfume of the roses and lilies of my bouquet.
From the open window, in pours the distant promise of rain.
The scent clings to my skin, lingers in my hair, mingling with the perfume of the past—of the girl I was before my father was killed.
That girl no longer exists. She died alongside him.
The woman in the mirror is just a stranger dressed for sacrifice.
Forcefully, someone shuts the windows. I don’t have to turn to see that it’s my mother.
Who else is left? She moves with the precision of a woman who has spent her life mastering control.
María Beltrán’s touch is cool as she fastens the last clasp of my gown, her fingers lingering just long enough to remind me of the weight of expectation.
Her expression is perfectly composed, and there is nothing new about that.
Perhaps it should comfort me that, no matter the circumstances that have brought us to the day, she is who she always has been.
Even if this were according to the plan, she would have tucked the ivory veil into my hair the same way, with her steady hands.
The tulle would have always fallen around my shoulders.
“You are a beautiful bride,” she murmurs as if reading from a script.
The words mean nothing to either of us. So, I don’t respond. My throat is too tight anyway, clogged with the rotting carcasses of all the words that will never be spoken.
She shifts to stand in front of me, then smooths the fabric of my sleeve. Her gaze is fixed somewhere beyond my reflection. “Your father would be proud,” she continues. Her voice is softer now, almost kind. “You are doing this for the family.”
A vacant smile curves my lips. Family. Such poetic framing for such a ubiquitous shackle.
I imagine bristling haughtily: The same family that bartered me away to a man I do not want?
To whom power is everything? The same family that expects me to kneel, to accept, to endure.
That family? I could laugh. Instead, I release a sigh that floods from the bottoms of my weary lungs. “I know, mama.”
My mother’s mouth opens—likely to reprimand me for the sigh. It always irritates her when I do it, and I know it. She calls it an unseemly, immature habit. Perhaps I should be allowed one, considering the circumstances. An argument today couldn’t make matters any worse.
The heavy door creaks open noisily before I can find out.
Renata steps inside smoothly. Her green, kohl-lined eyes flick between my mother and I, calculating an equation she doesn’t need to.
She has been my closest friend for years now.
Who knows better than her the way it is?
Today may be a ceremony in purgatory—but it also isn’t some dramatic departure from the status quo.
It is many things; surprising is not one of them.
Despite a couple of obviously impacted factors, this day is what it always would have been.
Still, she must see the poorly suppressed misery surging through me, for she hesitates before speaking. “Your – groom,” she says, her voice pitched lower than usual, “has asked me to check on you.”
Disquiet curdles in my belly.
He didn’t send a maid or a guard. He sent Renata.
A message in itself, of that I have no doubts.
My mother does not react. There is not a crease in her forehead when she appraises me, fluffing my veil one last time, before she steps back again.
Her part in this charade is complete. There is nothing more to be said, clearly.
Without another word, she turns and leaves.
Her footsteps are quiet against the marble floors.
For a moment, only silence stretches between me and Renata.
There are many we have shared over the years.
I suspect she will shatter this one with one of her obnoxious, audacious jokes, par for the course, just to make this a little more bearable for me.
Part of me wants her to do just that. Part of me thinks it would be cruel to make light of a day that feels so, so very heavy.
I watch as she moves closer to me, and the deep red silk of her gown—the one she’d chosen to be my dama de honor, before the groom had declared there would be no need for a wedding party—whispers melancholically against the grey carpet.
I don’t expect her to insist, “You don’t have to do this,” her palms at my cheeks, clutching my face between her hands, shaking me. The words are impassioned.
They hit me with a pang. My gaze drops.
I exhale softly, almost a laugh. But there’s no humor in it. Only resignation. My eyes burn, and I begin to shake my head, willing my vision not to blur. “And go where, Ren?” I ask mournfully. “The only way out of here is in a body bag.”
She flinches, just slightly. Then, she nods. She already knew the answer.
Her hands don’t drop from my cheeks, not yet, but neither do they fight when my head turns back to the reflection.
In the mirror, I see her head follow mine.
I see it move before I can feel her forehead against mine.
Her eyes are glassier than mine. For her, I mean the small smile that curls my lips. “I will be fine,” I say.
“You’re always fine, bebecita,” Renata murmurs.
At the hour of noon, the blazing sun pours in through the windows of the makeshift church.
The chapel at the edge of the Castillo estate has been bedecked with the details we’d pored over for months, now relocated from the church we’d originally chosen.
Every detail—every carefully placed arrangement of luscious red roses and dusky orchids, every looped swathe of vibrant teal silk—is meant to present the illusion of celebration. A union.
It is not.
This is a transaction, plain and simple.
A business deal to be sealed with vows instead of signatures, with rings instead of ink.
A hush overtakes the room, as is ceremonious, for when the bride enters the chapel.
Eyes lift, dozens of them, assessing, weighing, judging.
Their lips do not move, but I hear what lingers in their gazes as if they scream it:
The bride of the beast.
The woman meant for his brother.
I must stiffen. My mother walks beside me, her grip firm on my wrist, as if she fears I might flee. Of course, I do not run. Where would I even go? My fate was sealed long before tonight. I had made my peace with it.
Only, now, at the end of the room, it is Matías Castillo who awaits me.
Dressed in a black suit so sharp it could cut, he stands with the patience of a man who has never had to chase what he wants.
I do not have to guess to know it: he has never wanted for anything.
That is not the Castillo way. He does not fidget.
He does not shift. He simply watches as I approach, those dark, ink-pot eyes of his giving away nothing at all.
My hands fight not to tremble around my bouquet.
The last time I saw him, he had been flitting in and out of consciousness.
It had been weeks ago, when I had gone to see him, the brother-in-law I would no longer have, the man who had been too badly wounded to make it to his own brother’s funeral.
He had refused to see me. He had roared at me through the bandages still wrapped around his face.
A day later, I was condemned to be his bride.
Matías, before, had been a different kind of handsome than Tomás: tall, dark and handsome, like his mother, as opposed to Tomás’ stately, boyish good looks, taken after his own father.
Now, he is… I wonder if he, too, couldn’t stand his own reflection today.
Will it make him feel closer to me, if I were to ask him? Will he hurt me for it?
My eyes search the crowd—for what? Answers that no one will give me.
They find Magdalena Castillo somehow, sat among the Arias cartel elders, the matriarch of the family I am to be bound to.
She is regal in navy silk, diamonds glinting at her throat.
Her presence is heavy as the knowledge that she has watched me before, once with warmth when I was meant to be her daughter-in-law, now with something quieter. More calculated.
As if she, too, judges me for agreeing to this union.
One of her sons replaced for the other, to seal an alliance.
What about Tomás? her eyes ask. What about my apá?
I want to scream. My father would not be dead if he had not been with her sons that night.
There isn’t a soul in the church who doesn’t know it.
The priest begins to speak the very moment we reach the end of the aisle. His voice is a distant hum. I do not listen to the words. I already know what they mean. A command disguised as a choice.
Matías takes my hand, and his fingers are surprisingly warm. They are callused in a way Tomás’ were not, the few times his hands had caught mine—and not the time his fingers had skated along the slant of my jaw, coaxing my lips to his in a kiss he had allowed me to refuse him.