Chapter 6 – Matías #2
When she stops walking, I must do the same.
We’re near one of the interior balconies, overlooking the inner courtyard.
The light from the setting sun casts long gold shadows across her face.
She looks tired. Beautiful still, but tired in a way I’ve never allowed myself to admit before.
"I didn’t expect to lose him first," she says quietly.
I glance at her.
There’s a sharp pain in my chest, tight and bitter. "Neither did I."
Her eyes are distant, not meeting mine. "He was born for this world. It came to him like water to a stream. You… you fight it at every edge."
"Maybe I wasn’t meant for it.”
Her eyes, the same ones she’s passed onto me, latch to mine. "But you are in it all the same,” she says tersely. “And survival doesn’t ask if you were ready."
I laugh mirthlessly at that. "Is that what you tell yourself about me?” I ask, dubious. “That I’m the lesser evil because I survived?"
“I tell myself fate doesn’t care who’s worthy.” There it is. Not said cruelly. Not even said angrily. Just… stated, like a truth she’s been trying to swallow for weeks.
I laugh. It’s not a real laugh. It’s hollow and jagged and bitter. "I know. Believe me, I know."
"That’s not what I meant."
"Isn’t it?"
She looks at me then, really looks. "I blame the world for taking him. But part of me… I still wake up thinking he should have seen it coming. That you should have."
"So do I."
Another silence. This one different. Not heavy with accusation—just tired. Just grief, wrapped in armor.
"You don’t have to be him," she says finally. "But you need to be better than this. It isn’t enough. Become something they fear, something they trust. Something more than a shadow with a gun. That’s not your legacy anymore."
"What if I don’t know how to be anything else?"
"Then you learn. For him. You do that much for him."
She reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a small, worn object.
A signet ring. His ring. Tomás’ ring. "He would have given this to his son one day," she murmurs, her voice thick with tears we both know she will not shed in front of another soul. "But there won’t be a son now. And there won’t be another Tomás. So, it’s yours now.
Wear it. Don’t wear it. But know what it means. Respect what it stands for."
I take it. It’s heavy. Colder than I expect. It doesn’t fit quite right on my hand. Too tight. Too foreign. Like everything else about this life I didn’t ask for.
She steps back without another word.
I watch her walk away, knowing I’ll never fully understand whether she gave me a gift or a burden. Either way, there is no choice in the matter. That died with Tomás, too.
The engine growls beneath me, steady and familiar, the one constant in a world that won't stop shifting under my feet.
I lean forward slightly, letting the wind bite at my neck as Gabo's motorcycle eats up the pavement.
It's not elegant, not strategic, not politically acceptable—and it's mine.
Two wheels, a roaring engine, and control that doesn't require a driver I can't trust.
Gabo rides ahead, his silhouette solid and unfazed. He doesn’t say anything when I catch up, doesn’t need to. We’ve done this for years—before Tomás died, before Arturo started watching me like a hawk, before the Council looked at me like a mistake that hasn't bled out yet.
The estate disappears behind us, replaced by narrow roads threading through the foothills. Arturo had wanted me in a car today—again. He didn’t even bother hiding his frustration this time.
"You can’t keep hiding behind that bike," he'd said. "You’re a leader now, not a courier. What happens when we’re ambushed again? You think the Elders won’t notice how your hand shakes every time someone mentions a convoy?"
He’s right. And I hate that he’s right.
We park just outside the warehouse perimeter. Gabo hops off first, stretches his arms behind his back. "You sure you want to do this now? You’re not exactly steady today."
"I’m always steady," I lie.
Gabo turns to look at me, jaw tense. "You’re not. But I’m not going to say anything that makes you walk away from it. Arturo thinks he’s tough love. You know what I think? He’s scared. Scared that if you don’t get past this, you’ll crack when it counts."
I sit on the bike a moment longer, staring at the black SUV waiting near the loading dock. Just a car. Just steel and leather and glass. But I can feel the heat of fire in my lungs again, the way memory crawls up the back of my throat like smoke.
"You want me to ride with you?" Gabo asks.
I shake my head. "I don’t need a babysitter."
"Then what do you need, hermano?"
I don’t have an answer. Maybe just someone who remembers who I was before. Before this chair. Before that jungle. Before I started seeing ghosts in chrome.
Gabo watches me, arms crossed. "I know you think this makes you weak. But it doesn’t. It makes you human. You think Tomás didn’t have his own nightmares? You think your mother walks around without hers? The difference is, you don’t lie about yours."
I let the silence stretch between us.
The SUV idles, the low hum of its engine pulsing like a warning in my ears.
"You’re not the same man you were before," he says quietly. "And maybe that’s a good thing. But don’t let this one thing chain you. Not this. Not when you’ve fought through worse."
I nod slowly, my throat tight.
I swing my leg over the bike and start walking toward the vehicle.
The first step is fine. The second, harder.
By the third, I feel it coming—the memory. The flash.
The door clicks shut behind me, sealing me in.
The hum of the SUV’s engine is steady, soft, too soft—just enough to remind me of how it sounded that day.
I sit in the passenger seat, but my fingers twitch like they’re bracing for impact.
Gabo gets in beside me, doesn’t speak, doesn’t look. He knows better.
I stare straight ahead, but the glass windshield begins to blur, warping in the corners of my vision. The stitching of the seat beneath me feels rougher than it should. My throat tightens.
The scent hits first—leather warmed by the sun, the faint trace of cologne from the driver before me, and something chemical. Gun oil? Smoke? I can’t tell anymore. My brain dredges it all from memory and stitches it into this moment, whether it belongs or not.
My hand moves involuntarily, reaching for the handle beside the door, not to open it, but just to ground myself. Anchor myself.
But it’s too late.
The flashback slams into me without mercy.
I’m in the jungle again.
The convoy had been too quiet, too clean.
Tomás was ahead of me, leaning against the window, his phone in hand, smiling like he had all the time in the world.
I remember the flicker of suspicion in my chest, the instinct telling me something was wrong.
The way I gripped my gun a little tighter, even though the air smelled like heat and damp moss and not yet blood.
Then the sound came—a low pop, almost distant. A birdcall at first, until the second blast tore through the air like a scream.
The world flipped sideways. Tires skidding. Metal shearing—
"Matías."
Gabo’s voice cuts through the fog, low and firm, not panicked, just present. I’m back in the SUV, but my knuckles are white on the seatbelt strap, breath rattling in and out of me like I’ve run ten miles.
"Hey," he says again, hand on my shoulder now. "Look at me. You’re not there. You’re here. You’re with me."
I blink hard, my lungs still burning like there’s smoke in them.
"You’re okay," Gabo says quietly. "You got through it. You always get through it."
I nod, swallowing hard, feeling the sweat cooling on my skin. "It doesn’t feel like it."
"That’s ‘cause you remember what it felt like to die. Most men don’t get that kind of memory. You did. You lived. It’s not weakness—it’s scar tissue."
I let my head fall back against the seat. The hum of the engine is still there, but it doesn’t sound like fire anymore. Just a car. Just steel.
"Arturo’s going to keep pushing," I say after a while. "He wants me driving again. Wants me to pretend this isn’t crawling under my skin."
"Then you give him what he wants," Gabo replies. "But you give it on your own terms. No one gets to tell you how to carry your wounds. Not even Arturo."
I nod again, slower this time. The tremor in my fingers has quieted. Not gone. Just tucked deeper beneath the surface. Gabo doesn’t say anything else. He just sits there beside me, not filling the space, not trying to fix me. Just being there.
Sometimes, that’s all you can do.
Sometimes, that’s enough.