Chapter 12 – Matías #2
She so rarely curses, it’s impossible not to be fazed when she does.
She spits out the truth now, finally, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.
Like she didn’t sneak out, like she didn’t expose herself, like she didn’t fucking put herself in the crosshairs without thinking of the consequences.
It’s no win that Noa is breathing hard now, her chest rising and falling too fast, and she still doesn’t look away.
My fingers are still curled against the wall beside her head.
I could let her go. I should let her go.
Instead, my mouth catches against hers in a feverish claim.
My fingers twist into her hair, yanking her closer, molding her against me like I can make her disappear inside my own skin. She gasps, but it isn’t shock—and it parts her lips, granting me welcome entry into her warm, wet mouth.
For a moment, she gives in. A soft, quivering moan slips free, betraying her, right into my mouth. Her hands come up, nestling in my hair, tugging needily at the roots. A single second of surrender.
Then, her hands drop back and she shoves me again, harder, this time.
I stagger back a step, breath ragged, fists clenched at my sides.
Noa’s voice is raw, turned rasping. “That’s not good enough,” she condemns.
I say nothing. I just stare at her, chest rising and falling, fucking burning with a fire for her she only seems to stoke.
“You need to grow the hell up, Matías,” she snaps, like the look on my face is too much for her. “Sex doesn’t fix everything. It won’t make your problems—our problems—go away. You can’t bury this inside my body.”
She’s right. I hate that she’s right.
I step back another step, forcing my features into a mask of neutrality, trying my damnedest to channel Ardi’s adamant calm. Shoving everything down. Smothering it before it devours anything more, before it damages irreversibly.
I wish she was wrong. I wish she was fucking wrong.
But she isn’t.
At the worst, or best and most necessary, moment, Arturo clears his throat to the side. I can’t even look at him. I can barely look at Noa fussing with the hoodie draped over her arm.
“Jefe,” he says. “The elders want to see you. Both of you.”
The words strike like a hammer to my skull. That was quick, I think. But I don’t move. Neither does Noa. A rapid thump lodges in my throat. Noa’s words ring in my ears, feeding the fire licking through my veins: You need to grow the hell up.
I should have seen that response coming.
But I hadn’t. Because when I touch her, when I feel her tighten around me, come apart beneath my hands, my mouth, my cock—it should be enough.
It should fucking be enough to quiet the hurricane inside me, to chain the fucking chaos, to make her understand that she is mine and nothing else matters.
But it’s not enough for her. Why had I decided today it could be?
She stands there now, staring up at me with remnants of fire still smoldering in her gaze. Her breath comes in quick bursts, and her face is ruddy with a flush that turns her loveliness unfair, but she doesn’t look away. No fear. No hesitation. Just fucking defiance.
I drag a hand over my face, rubbing across my scar before cutting a sharp look at Arturo. He stands just inside the doorway, hands clasped in front of him. I nod to him, then order, “Get the car ready.”
I turn back to her, my voice cold, clipped. “Move.”
She doesn’t argue, but the way her lips press together, the way she cants her head just slightly before stepping past me, tells me that she wants to. That she wants to keep fighting. To keep pushing.
She doesn’t know what we’re walking into.
Neither do I, honestly.
But she’ll soon learn, the only thing more dangerous than testing me is testing the men who made me.
The convoy moves through the city in silence, sleek black SUVs slicing through the streets like a blade through flesh.
The drive is short but tense, the atmosphere inside the vehicle stretched taut like a wire ready to snap.
Noa sits beside me, her posture rigid. She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t ask where we’re going.
She knows she isn’t privy to the information.
The cathedral looms ahead, a monolith of stone and shadow.
It was built centuries ago, back when men thought God was the only power that mattered.
The Arias cartel took it long before I was born.
A place where blood is spilled as often as prayers are whispered.
The past lingers here, cumbersome and cloying.
It seeps from the cracks of the walls, into the candle-warmed air.
The moment the car stops, the doors open. Arturo opens her door and escorts Noa out of her side.
“Time to move,” he says, stepping aside as the guards close in.
Noa walks ahead, eerily calm as she takes in the massive wooden doors. I follow a step behind her, the sound of my boots striking the cobblestones echoing. The doors creak open with a groan, swallowing us into the dimly lit interior.
The intense odor of incense lingers, masking the rot that time and toil have left behind. Candles flicker in iron sconces, their light casting shadows that dance like specters across the vaulted ceiling. It’s colder in here than it ought to be. The kind of cold that sinks into bone.
We’re led through the nave, past rows of empty pews, toward a door at the back. Beyond it, the meeting room awaits.
A long mahogany table dominates the space, surrounded by the Council of Elders.
I consider how it all looks to Noa: Salas, with his perpetually disdainful smirk.
Herrera, ever the traditionalist, fingers stained with tobacco and cruelty.
Toribio, who says little but watches everything with predatory patience.
These men who have held power longer than I’ve been alive.
Their weathered faces that harbor brutal, beady eyes.
They are the ones who decide the fate of this empire.
They are the ones who think they can decide mine.
They take up one side of the table. Noa and I take the two propped seats on the other side.