Chapter 4 – Noa
The morning air clings thick and damp to my skin.
I tip my head to the sky, watching the clouds roll sluggishly overhead, a smothering gray expanse pressing down against the compound walls.
The side of the courtyard I’ve ventured to is unoccupied, save for the occasional guard stationed along the perimeter, their presence neither acknowledged nor intrusive.
I exhale slowly, letting the moisture settle in my lungs before raising my arms overhead, stretching until my shoulders pull taut.
The soreness from yesterday lingers—a ghost in my muscles, a dull ache wound into the sinew of my limbs.
I let it bleed out with every extension, every careful twist of my spine.
It had taken hours to make me into a bride.
Hours of hands that did not belong to me sculpting my image into something palatable.
Hair pinned. Lips painted. A dress wrapped like a vice around my ribs, forcing me into a silhouette designed to please.
Now, stripped of satin and lace, I stretch in the cool air, reveling in the looseness of my own body.
It feels good to move. Good to exist outside the cage they had built for me yesterday.
Running, at least, has always been mine. A single act of defiance that no one could take. Not my mother. Not my father. Not the man I had married.
My feet find rhythm against the brick path, soles slapping against damp stone as I push forward.
My body moves on instinct—shoulders back, breathing measured, the steady thud of my steps merging with the distant murmur of jungle life beyond the estate walls.
It is not freedom, but it is motion, and that is enough.
Somewhere between steps, memory stirs.
My apá is sitting on the porch, the wooden chair creaking faintly as he leans back, an old rifle balanced across his lap. He has men to do this kind of thing for him—an entire armory of workers who keep his collection in pristine condition. But he doesn’t trust hands that aren’t his own.
He never did.
I am small, too small for the pistol he presses into my palms, but I take it without complaint.
My fingers curl around the grip, unsteady but eager.
His dark eyes, unreadable, rake over me as he wipes down the length of his own weapon, the oil slick on his cloth catching the golden hues of the setting sun.
“Again.”
I nod, swallowing hard. My heart beats too fast, too loud, but I force myself to focus. My tiny fingers struggle with the slide, but I have done this before. I will do it again. I will do it until my hands move as swiftly as his.
The run tightens in my chest, my breaths sharper now. The humidity wraps around my throat, but I keep my pace, pushing through the dense air. The distant tang of cigar smoke drifts towards me from somewhere in the estate. My heart aches in my chest.
I shake the memory loose, but it clings to me, trailing my steps like a shadow.
I had learned to clean and assemble weapons before I had learned to braid my own hair.
I had been six.
I adjust my stride, arms pumping, my pulse hammering beneath my skin.
The path curves ahead, leading toward the east side of the estate, where the garden gives way to thick jungle foliage just beyond the compound walls.
The guards stationed near the outer gates barely spare me a glance.
Let them watch. Let them wonder if I’ll keep running, if I’ll press my body against the iron gates and dare them to stop me.
Ignacio Beltrán had been an arms dealer first. A father second.
He never coddled. Never softened the world for me. He was a man who understood what it took to survive, and he had not been content to raise a daughter who relied on men for protection.
A faint hum of approval had rumbled in his chest when I finally stripped and reassembled the gun without hesitation. I had grinned.
I had wanted his praise so badly.
Now, the thought of it burns in my throat.
My strides lengthen. The burn in my legs is a welcome ache, something real, something tangible. I let the motion carry me forward, pushing against the storm-laden sky, against the past that refuses to loosen its grip.
Guns were never foreign to me. Neither was violence.
I remind myself of this with every footfall, with every sharp inhale that cuts through my lungs. I was raised for this world, shaped by hands that never knew tenderness, only purpose. I was not given softness, not granted the luxury of na?veté.
I need to remember that now.
I need to remember that I was bred to survive being a beast’s bride.
I don’t know how much time passes before I finally slow my pace from the jog I’ve tapered down to. My breath is measured, my body humming deliciously from methodical exertion. My pulse roars in my ears, but my hands are steadier than they have in days.
I feel like I can handle it—him—now.
The estate looms ahead, its sprawling corridors half-lit by the moody morning light. It isn’t as daunting as it had been when I had stepped out before. I treat myself to a furtive smile over it, letting my steps meander in this place I’ve made my peace with being my new home.
Then, a sound.
A thick, wet impact. A pause. Again.
The rhythm of it halts me mid-step.
I know that sound. I knew it as a child, even when I hadn’t wanted to. A heavy fist meeting flesh, again and again, until resistance crumbles and there’s nothing left but the ragged groans of a man too broken to scream.
Muffled noises seep through the narrow corridor to my left, just beyond the next doorway.
There’s a shuffle, then a low groan, the rasp of breath forced through bloodied teeth.
I forcefully suck in a measured breath. The oxygen tastes like tar in my mouth.
My pulse remains steady, yet edged with a razor-sharp tension, every nerve bristling, instincts coiled tight and screaming beneath my skin.
I could keep walking. I should.
But I don’t.
I don’t know why I don’t.
I don’t know why my feet carry me forward instead, not drawn by curiosity so much as surrendered to inevitability. A part of me already knows what I’ll find.
Through the open threshold, the room unfolds before me.
Matías stands at the center, his broad frame bathed in the sinister illumination of the overhead light.
Shadows carve deep lines across his face, accentuating the angry scar on his face as much the unwavering intensity in his eyes.
It outlines his presence in stark contrasts—half in the world of the living, half swallowed by the dark.
His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, exposing forearms vined in protruding veins.
His knuckles are darkened with fresh bruises and slicked with crimson; blood stains the bandage swathed around the palm he’d cut yesterday at the altar.
Blood spatters the concrete floor in thick, syrupy droplets, the pattern of it messy, careless.
A man sits slumped in a chair, his body a ruin of battered flesh and trembling limbs.
His face is nearly unrecognizable beneath the swelling, the left eye sealed shut, lips split wide open.
Blood dribbles from his mouth, pooling at the hollow of his collarbone before dropping to the floor beneath him.
His chest heaves with uneven breaths, each inhale rattling, each exhale a struggle.
To the side, Arturo and Gabo stand, unmoved by the carnage before them. Arturo’s gaze is calculating, ever the tactician, his arms folded neatly across his chest. Gabo, by contrast, looks almost bored, shifting his stance slightly, the casual adjustment of a man accustomed to watching others bleed.
My husband doesn’t look at me immediately.
Instead, he tilts his head slightly, considering the man before him, his expression unreadable. A predator weighing its prey.
“You think you can steal from me?” he asks. His voice is smooth, edged with that distinct, unwavering certainty. The man barely lifts his head. His mouth parts, but no words come, only a wet, gurgling sound.
There is no rage behind Matías’ actions, no frenzied fury, no uncontrolled wrath. This is not an outburst of passion or vengeance. It is methodical. A lesson being taught, one bone-shattering strike at a time.
I fight the wave of sour, stinging bile that claws up my throat.
This is just business to him. Just another day at the office. No place for his wife to be.
As if he hears my thoughts, Matías finally turns his head, his dark eyes cutting to mine. There is no surprise in his gaze, no irritation, no acknowledgment of my presence. He merely blinks before his attention is back to his prey.
Another low groan sounds. A vicious tremor wracks the prisoner’s frame, his fingers twitching where they’ve been bound behind the chair.
The ragged breaths of the man tied to the chair fill the room, shallow and gasping, laced with the wet gurgle of blood thickening in his throat.
A sour stench pervades the room, seemingly radiating from the very walls.
He twitches as Matías curls a hand around his jaw, fingers pressing into bruised flesh.
He squirms against the grip—only for Matías to tighten it, digging into the tender, swollen skin beneath his cheekbone until the man whimpers, a pitiful, rattling sound.
“Look at me,” Matías hums.
The man resists, eyelids fluttering, his consciousness slipping like water through cupped hands. His shattered teeth glint dully, blood dribbling down his chin in slow, syrupy rivulets. His lips quiver, tongue struggling to form a plea around the mess of ruined enamel and swollen flesh.
Matías exhales, amused by the effort. He tilts his head slightly, considering the pathetic creature in front of him. “I should take your hands for this,” he muses.