Chapter 21 – Noa
For two days, Matías has been a ghost.
Not a word. Not a touch. Not even a damn glance.
I should be relieved. I should be grateful for the reprieve.
Instead, it gnaws at me like a blade scraping bone, each second carving another slice of my sanity away.
He is not an absence—I feel him everywhere.
His shadow stretches across every hallway, his scent lingers in every room, his silence rings louder than any of his words ever could.
And yet, I am the one being punished. Because with every moment that passes, Elías inches closer to death.
I know what Matías is waiting for.
For me to kneel.
For me to break.
So much has changed over the weeks, but not enough. In a way, we are still standing where we were the day after our wedding: him, ready to slaughter, forcing me to make choices he’s put me in the position to have to make. A gun in my hand, proverbial instead of literal.
But I won’t make the mistake that day. I won’t walk away, pretending I’ve got no control in the situation. I can’t.
Not when I can stop this.
The guards outside Elías’ holding room are distracted. A delivery truck arrived an hour ago, and Arturo is managing the incoming inventory. I had counted on that. The others don’t expect me to be bold enough to come down here. They believe I know better.
They’re wrong.
My hands tremble as I reach for the keys hanging on the hook.
The cold metal clinks against itself, sending a sharp pulse of unease through my veins.
I tighten my grip. I cannot afford hesitation.
My heartbeat pounds in my ears, in my throat, in the tips of my fingers.
The lock glares at me, waiting, daring me to cross a line that cannot be uncrossed.
I hesitate.
If I do this, there’s no undoing it.
If Matías finds out—
No. He won’t.
I push the key into the lock and twist. The bolt shifts with a dull click, echoing in the empty corridor. My breath catches. The walls feel too close, pressing in, thick with the scent of damp concrete and something else—something acrid, metallic, staining the air like a warning.
I slip inside.
Elías looks almost unrecognizable.
He’s still tied to the chair, his body slumped, but there’s a flicker of awareness as I step closer.
His wrists are raw, the skin split open from where he’s fought against the restraints.
His fingers twitch, whether from pain or exhaustion, I don’t know.
His face is a ruin of bruises, the skin stretched too tight over swelling that distorts his features.
Dried blood crusts along his temple, painting an ugly trail down to his mouth, where his lower lip is split wide open.
His shirt is torn, the fabric clinging to his sweat-slick skin, damp and wrinkled from too many hours in this suffocating room. The air is stale, thick with the scent of iron, of damp concrete and something fouler—something like rot.
I inhale sharply, forcing myself to keep my gaze level. I cannot let myself falter. I cannot let myself hesitate. I chose this. There’s no turning back now.
But his eyes—
His eyes are still the same.
And when they land on me, they burn with something unreadable.
He exhales sharply, the sound rattling, grating. And then—
"Noa."
His voice is hoarse, dragged from the depths of pain and exhaustion, but the sound still finds a way to pierce through me.
My breath stutters.
Because despite everything—despite the bruises that bloom across his skin like poison, despite the blood crusting at the corners of his mouth, despite the hours he has spent bound to this chair—
He still sounds like him.
Like the boy I once trusted.
Like the boy I—
No.
That’s not real.
I step forward, the scuff of my foot against the concrete breaking the heavy silence between us. My knees hit the ground before I even realize I’ve moved, and I press my hands to his restraints, fingers fumbling against the knots that dig into his skin.
“Are you okay?” The words slip out before I can stop them. A stupid question. A useless one. But I need to hear something. Anything.
Elías huffs a sound that might have once been a laugh, if not for the sharp edge of bitterness that guts it.
“Do I look okay?”
My stomach twists.
No. He doesn’t. He looks like he has been left to rot, like his body has been stretched too thin over the weight of his suffering. His ribs press sharply beneath his skin, his chest rising and falling in uneven, fractured breaths.
This is my fault.
I press my lips together, swallowing down the words that want to spill out—apologies that won’t fix this, won’t take away what’s been done to him. I reach for the restraints again, tugging at the tight knot around his wrist. My fingers are unsteady, but I refuse to stop.
Elías tilts his head, watching me with a gaze that feels too knowing, too heavy.
“I knew you’d come.”
My fingers still.
His voice is softer now, the bitterness gone, replaced with something else—something quieter.
I don’t know if it’s real.
I don’t know if I want it to be.
“I don’t have much time,” I say instead, keeping my hands moving. “I’m getting you out.”
Elías’ lips twitch, the ghost of a smile curling at the corner of his bruised mouth.
“I knew you wouldn’t let him kill me.”
My heart aches.
Because a part of me believes him.
A part of me wishes I didn’t.
Elías' voice drops lower, a whisper dragged across the raw edges of his throat, a confession wrapped in the tattered remains of his strength. "I never stopped loving you."
I freeze.
The knot I’m working on slips from my grasp, the coarse rope biting into his wrist once more.
My fingers twitch, but I don’t move to grab it.
My lungs constrict, my breath stalling before I can force it out.
The words hang between us, thick and suffocating, pressing against my ribs like a hand wrapped around my throat.
It’s a lie.
It has to be.
But the way he says it—hoarse and wrecked, threaded with exhaustion yet still deliberate—makes my chest tighten.
His face is battered, swollen in places where the bruising has darkened to sickly purples and deep blues, his lower lip split and barely beginning to heal.
And yet, his eyes remain steady, piercing through the dim light of the holding room.
There is no hesitation, no flicker of doubt in his expression.
He looks at me as if the years between us never happened. As if I am still the girl who once trusted him blindly. As if what he did, what he became, never mattered.
My pulse hammers against my ribs, each beat crashing through me like a warning siren.
I want to move. I want to shake my head and tell him he is wrong, tell him that I don’t believe him, that I don’t care.
That I feel nothing. But my body betrays me, locked in place, unwilling to give me the escape I crave.
Elías doesn’t move. He doesn’t force the moment forward. He waits.
For what?
For me to believe him?
For me to crack open the past and let it spill between us?
The room presses in around me. The air is stagnant, thick with the scent of sweat, blood, and damp concrete. I can taste it on the back of my tongue, bitter and suffocating. I need to get out of here. I need to finish what I came to do.
Elías watches me with that same unwavering focus, his jaw tight, his fingers twitching slightly where they remain bound. And then, after a beat of silence that stretches unbearably, his voice softens, dipping lower.
"Did you?"
My throat tightens.
He is giving me an out. A chance to sever the thread of history that still lingers between us, to tell him what he already knows.
I should say no.
I should tell him it was never love.
I should shut this down before it becomes something I can’t contain.
Instead, I swallow, my throat clicking against the dry air, my chest aching with a pressure I can’t shake. And that hesitation—that single second of silence—is enough.
Elías’ lips curl, slow and deliberate, but there’s no amusement in the expression. It isn’t a smirk or a smile, but something else entirely—something that burrows under my skin and leaves a lingering sense of unease in its wake.
A realization. A confirmation.
He has his answer now.
I wish I had never come here.
Elías doesn’t press further. The silence between us is thick, weighted by the unspoken truths neither of us are willing to voice.
I shake off the suffocating grip of his stare and return to untying the ropes around his wrists.
My fingers move quickly, working through the knots, but my hands won’t stop trembling.
I force myself to focus on the frayed edges of the rope, the way the fibers have cut into his skin.
His wrists are torn raw, the flesh beneath the bindings swollen and dark with bruising.
The rope resists, but I dig my nails into it, twisting until it gives.
I glance up at him. “Can you walk?”
His lips twitch like he might laugh, but the sound doesn’t come. He flexes his freed fingers, the movement slow, deliberate. “Just need to get out of here.”
I nod, even though his voice is weak, even though I can see the way his body sways slightly as I work on his other wrist. I don’t acknowledge the fear creeping up my spine, the worry that he might collapse the moment he tries to stand.
I finish untying his second wrist, and as soon as his hands are free, his fingers close around the arms of the chair like he’s gathering the last of his strength.
“We have to move fast,” I say, wrapping an arm under his to help him up. “They’ll notice I’m gone soon.”
Elías sucks in a breath through his teeth, the sound sharp as I pull him to his feet. His weight sags against me for a split second before he straightens, locking his knees. He wavers, but he doesn’t fall. His fingers press into my arm, gripping tight enough to leave bruises.
“I’ve got it,” he murmurs, but I don’t let go.
We move toward the door.
Each step is slow, careful, as we inch toward escape.
The walls of the small room feel like they are closing in, the dim overhead light flickering, casting shadows that stretch and twist across the floor.
The scent of blood and sweat clings to the air, a sickly reminder of how much time has passed since he was thrown into this place.
My pulse hammers in my ears, my breath tight in my chest as I reach for the lock.
Almost there.
Almost free.
The cold metal clicks beneath my fingertips, the lock disengaging with a soft scrape. My heart slams against my ribs. I ease the door open, peering into the hallway. It’s empty.
I turn back to Elías, nodding for him to follow.
But before I can take another step, something shifts.
A sharp movement.
A rush of air.
And then pain—
Blinding, breath-stealing pain as a fist slams into my stomach.
The force knocks the air from my lungs, stealing my breath before I can even gasp. My knees buckle, my body folding inward as agony coils deep in my core. The floor rushes up to meet me, but I don’t hit it. A hand snatches my wrist, twisting it hard enough to send white-hot pain shooting up my arm.
My head snaps up, a strangled sound clawing its way out of my throat.
Elías grips me like a vice, his fingers digging into my skin.
Shock paralyzes me, my mind struggling to catch up with reality. My chest heaves, my lungs fighting to pull in air, but the pressure in my stomach is too much.
“You thought you were saving me?”
His voice is ice.
Cold and sharp, stripped of every ounce of warmth it had held just seconds before. The exhaustion is gone. The weakness is gone. The mask has dropped.
I stare at him, my body frozen in place, my breath coming in short, pained gasps.
“Elías—”
His grip tightens. My wrist burns where he holds it, his fingers pressing down hard enough that I feel the bones grind together.
“You think I needed your fucking help?”
His eyes are no longer soft. No longer pleading.
They are dark. Calculating. Pitiless.
And that’s when I realize—
He played me.
He fucking played me.
Elías smirks, a cruel, slow pull of his lips that sends dread sinking into my stomach like a lead weight.
"You were always too easy to fool."
His fingers tighten around my wrist, twisting it just enough to send sharp pain lancing up my forearm.
My breath stutters, my mind scrambling to process what’s happening.
My body reacts before I can think—I jerk back, trying to wrench free, but his grip is unrelenting. A vice locked around my bones.
I shake my head, swallowing hard against the nausea rising in my throat. “Why—?”
He tilts his head, mockery flickering behind the bruises marring his face. “Oh, Noa,” he murmurs, voice dripping with false sympathy. “You really thought this was about you?”
My pulse slams against my ribs. A sick realization slithers through me, sinking its claws in deep.
This was never about me.
He just needed a way out.
And I gave it to him.
My chest tightens, a fresh wave of panic crashing over me. I force my body to react, twisting my arm, trying to loosen his grip, but the moment I move, his other hand lashes out. I barely register the motion before pain explodes across the side of my head.
A sharp, blinding impact. A vicious crack of bone against flesh.
White-hot agony bursts behind my eyes, the world tilting violently. My balance vanishes. My legs give out beneath me. I don’t even feel myself hit the ground—just the cold, unforgiving concrete against my cheek, the sharp ringing in my skull swallowing every other sound.
I gasp, blinking hard, trying to clear my vision. The dim light overhead flickers, distorting Elías’ face as he looms over me. My stomach churns, nausea rolling through me in thick waves. My fingers claw at the ground, desperate for something to anchor me.
“Elías,” I choke out, barely above a whisper.
His expression doesn’t change. There’s no regret. No hesitation. Just cold indifference.
“It is bigger than you,” he says simply.
The words slice through me, sharper than the blow to my skull.
My vision blurs. My limbs feel distant, disconnected from me. The edges of the room start to dim, shadows creeping in, swallowing the corners of my consciousness.
No.
Not like this.
I try to push up, to force my body to move, but everything tilts sideways. My arms shake beneath me, useless, my breath rattling in my chest. A low, distorted ringing hums in my ears, drowning out the rest of the world.
Elías steps over me.
My lashes flutter.
The darkness swallows me whole.