Chapter 7 – Matías
It has been a week since I last laid eyes on my wife.
Seven days of avoiding her. Seven nights of taking up residence anywhere that isn’t our bed. The couch in the den, the spare rooms scattered across the estate, even the chair in my office once or twice—anywhere to escape the looming presence of the woman who now belongs to me by law and blood.
I tell myself it’s easier this way. That if I keep my distance, if I avoid the weight of her gaze and the whispers of silk against her skin, I can keep my head clear. I can focus on the things that matter.
I tell myself a lot of things.
It doesn’t change the fact that I still feel her, even when she’s not in the room.
Tonight, that room is the grand hall of El Castillo Museo y Jardines.
The chandeliers cast fractured light across the marble floors, turning the crowd into a sea of shifting gold and shadow.
Conversations pulse like a heartbeat beneath the vaulted ceilings—low murmurs, careful calculations, laughter edged with sharpness.
Every movement in this room is strategic.
Every glance holds meaning. Here, power is not just currency; it is language, spoken in the way a man holds his drink, the way a woman tilts her chin in greeting, the way the elders at the long table watch the younger generation like wolves assessing a pack.
I stand at the center of it, whiskey glass in hand, watching. Waiting.
This used to be Tomás’ world. He had known how to navigate these gatherings with effortless charm, how to shake hands with men who would slit his throat if given the chance and make them believe they were old friends.
He had made them feel important. Essential.
As if their words carried more weight than they actually did.
I don’t have his patience.
I would rather shoot half the men in this room than listen to them talk.
But Arturo keeps steering me through the crowd, guiding me like a handler with a half-wild dog. His hand lingers at my elbow in the subtlest of motions, his presence an anchor that keeps me from doing anything rash.
“Vázquez is pushing into our routes near the Venezuelan border,” he murmurs, his tone smooth, practiced, perfectly unbothered.
“We’ll handle it,” I reply absently, rolling the whiskey over my tongue, letting the burn settle into my throat.
Arturo exhales slowly, a barely-there sound that still manages to convey his exasperation. “You have to interact with these people, Mat.”
I take a slow sip of my drink before responding. “Just be glad I haven’t put a bullet through anyone’s skull yet, Ardi.”
His lips twitch, a ghost of a smirk that vanishes as quickly as it arrives. “Yet.”
It’s not a joke. We both know it.
Arturo has been with the Castillos since before I was born. He served my father, then Tomás, and now—now he serves me. The transition was not meant to happen this way, and we both feel the jagged edges of it, the wrongness of it. He is still adjusting to the fact that I am not my brother.
That makes two of us.
I lift my glass, watching the way the amber liquid catches the light. My reflection stares back at me from the curve of the crystal, distorted, the scars along my jaw casting uneven obscurities across my face.
Once, I had been the hidden blade of this operation.
Tomás had been the diplomat, the strategist, the face.
I had been the one who worked in the dark, the one whose name was spoken in warning but whose face was rarely seen.
That was before the ambush. Before the jungle.
Before the bullet that tore through my skull and left me with a scar that would never fade.
Now, I am the face.
And what a fucking ruin of a face it is.
I wonder if the men in this room see anything besides the scar when they look at me. If they stare too long at the twisted lines of flesh and wonder if it is a sign of weakness. If they think I am something less than I was before. I know I do.
They do not say it aloud, of course. No one would dare. But I see it in the flickers of their gazes, the brief hesitations before they meet my eye. The way some of them glance toward the elders, as if waiting for a signal that I am still worthy of the throne I now occupy.
I tip back the rest of my drink and resist the urge to snarl at them all.
Arturo shifts beside me, scanning the room, his gaze sharp as a blade. Then, in the same measured tone he always uses, he says, “At least your wife is making friends.”
My grip tightens around the glass. My eyes chase his line of sight…
Noa stands on the other side of the room, a vision draped in gold.
The dress clings to her, shimmering under the chandelier’s veneration, embroidered filigree catching in the glow.
Every movement sends ripples of metallic brilliance down the fabric, each step poised, every tilt of her head an effortless display of control.
Regal. Unattainable as a deity. The kind of beauty men start wars for.
I haven’t seen her wear her hair down since before our wedding.
She has an irritating habit of keeping it braided, tucked away from reach, from touch.
Now, those dark waves spill over her shoulders, framing her face, cascading down her back in thick, loose ribbons.
My fingers curl around the glass in my hand, knuckles stiff.
She knows what she’s doing. Knows the effect of this. She has to.
The slit in her dress is too high. Her neckline is too low.
I should tell her to change. Cover her up.
Drag her away from the wolves who are already looking too long, lingering too much.
But the thought of another gown wrapping around her skin doesn’t sit right either.
The urge that pulses beneath my ribs isn’t to hide her—it’s to tear the dress from her body entirely.
She isn’t looking for me.
That’s her first mistake.
Her attention is on someone else, a man standing too close, speaking too easily. He’s young. Not one of the inner circle. Barely worthy of breathing the same space as her. I recognize him vaguely—one of the new associates, eager to prove himself. He shouldn’t be anywhere near my wife.
And then Noa laughs.
A smoldering heat spreads through my chest, unravelling like embers catching in dry air. It doesn’t comfort—it sears, sparking viciously beneath my ribs, hungry and restless, ready to consume.
I stop listening to Arturo.
The hum of conversation fades into nothing. I hear nothing. I see nothing else but her.
That laugh is mine.
And she just gave it to someone else.
Just like that, my patience—thin as it is—snaps.
I move.
Not quickly, not recklessly. Just enough.
A shift in the room, subtle but absolute.
The moment my feet close the distance between us, I feel the ripple it sends through the crowd.
People sense danger before they see it. They know when a predator has set his sights on a target.
A hush spreads in the conversations around us, laughter thinning, glasses pausing halfway to lips.
Instinct, embedded in the bones of men who have survived in rooms like this one for too long.
The boy—because that’s what he is, no matter how desperately he postures as a man—feels it too.
He tenses before I reach them, his shoulders locking, his bravado peeling away in real time.
The grin he had so confidently worn a second ago vanishes, as if it never existed at all.
His spine straightens. A pathetic display of discipline, performed a moment too late.
I don’t even bother looking at him.
Noa is the only thing I see. If she feels me coming, she doesn’t show it. No, she continues to stand tall, poised, unaffected by the gathering of wolves who lurk in the periphery, watching the scene unfold. Her chin merely cants when my gaze finds hers. She remains composed. Elegant. Defiant.
She should know better.
I stop beside her, hands loose at my sides, voice smooth as the scotch in my glass. “You seem to be enjoying yourself.”
Noa doesn’t miss a beat. “Excuse me, I’m in the middle of a conversation,” she says coolly.
That chin stays raised, her amber gaze locked on mine, unwavering.
She meets me like an equal, as if she hasn’t just been caught standing too close to a man who isn’t me.
As if the fabric draped over her skin isn’t a provocation in itself.
My fingers twitch at my side, itching to find purchase, to remind her, here and now, exactly who she belongs to.
Finally, I acknowledge the boy.
A slow glance, dismissive, weighted with the quiet reality of his mistake. He isn’t worth my time. Not really. He barely warrants my attention, but I let him have it for a moment. Just long enough for his throat to bob with his swallowed nerves. “Did I give you permission to talk to my wife?”
The words drop quietly, fatally, roped in implication. The boy stammers pathetically in response, his mouth opening, closing. Swallowing twice before he finds the sense to speak. “I—Jefe, I meant no disrespect—”
I don’t give a fuck.
It doesn’t matter what he meant. Doesn’t matter what words tumble out of his mouth in a last-ditch effort to explain himself. Noa is standing here, looking like a goddess draped in gold, laughing at a joke that wasn’t mine. That alone is enough.
The movement is lightning-fast.
My fingers clamp around the back of his neck, the heat of his skin searing beneath my grip for the briefest second before I drive him forward.
The satisfying crack of his face meeting the table splits through the room, sharp as gunfire.
The impact rattles glasses, topples a bottle of whiskey, sends silverware skittering across linen.
A few drops of amber liquid splash onto my sleeve.
I don’t look at them. I don’t look at anything but the pathetic excuse of a man now groaning beneath my palm.
A collective inhale sucks the sound from the hall, as if the room itself braces for the fallout. Conversations die mid-sentence. Every pair of eyes is on us. But no one dares move.