Chapter 11 #5
“You are easily the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in a long time,” he continued smoothly, as if compliments were currency he spent without thinking. “My friends and I are having a good time on the dance floor. I was thinking you might like to be my partner for a dance.”
A dance.
With someone who couldn’t see the floor, the rhythm, or the crowd.
How considerate.
I lifted an eyebrow, even though he couldn’t see it, letting sarcasm sharpen my tone.
“Shouldn’t a proper gentleman ask whether I can even dance before offering me his hand?”
A low chuckle followed, closer now.
“My bad,” he said lightly. “I’m Marcelo, by the way. And you?”
Marcelo.
I repeated it silently in my mind, filing it away without interest.
I brought the glass back to my lips and took another slow sip of rum, letting the warmth settle before answering him.
The burn steadied me more than it should have.
“Loretta,” I said simply.
A pause.
Then I set the glass down carefully, fingers trailing the rim to ensure I didn’t spill.
“I’m sorry, Marcelo,” I said evenly, “but I’ll have to decline. I’m not in the mood to dance tonight.”
There was another pause.
Shorter this time.
Like he was recalculating.
“Well...” The stool beside me scraped faintly against the floor as he sat down without asking.
I stiffened slightly, immediately aware of the intrusion.
“I hope you don’t mind me sitting here?” he added, almost lazily.
I didn’t turn toward him.
“Yes,” I replied, taking another sip. “Just don’t touch me. I don’t like being touched.”
“I won’t,” he said quickly, almost reassuring. “Are you here with someone?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I couldn’t have come here alone, obviously.”
A soft hum of amusement.
“Male or female?”
That question made something in me sharpen.
Not anger exactly.
“Why should that matter?” I asked, tilting my head slightly toward his voice. “Are you planning to ask me out or something? You should know I’m married.”
A short laugh left him, unbothered.
“Many married women come around here,” he said casually, like it was a statistic rather than a boundary. “So... who might your husband be? Barcelona is a small world. We all tend to know each other in these circles.”
That sentence should have made me uncomfortable.
It did.
But not in the way he expected.
Because Rafael did not belong to “these circles.”
I smirked faintly, lifting the glass again.
The rum slid down easier now—less burn, more blur at the edges of thought.
I drained the rest of it in one slow sip.
I turned back toward the bar, fingers tightening around the now-empty glass as if it was the only stable thing left in a world that kept shifting under me.
“Please give me more,” I said, voice quieter now, less guarded than I intended.
A pause.
Then—
“Okay, ma’am.”
The bartender’s voice was professional. I felt the glass lifted from my hand carefully, replaced by the faint sound of liquid being poured.
The refill came back to me moments later, sliding across polished wood with precision.
I wrapped my fingers around it again.
Anchoring.
“You seem lost in thought,” Marcelo said beside me. “If something’s troubling you, you might feel better talking about it.”
I let out a small breath through my nose.
A humorless sound.
Men always thought talking was the cure for everything.
As if words could fix the damage caused by other words.
I brought the glass to my lips again, taking another slow sip. The rum burned less now—either I was getting used to it or my senses were dulling in a way I didn’t fully trust.
Still, it grounded me.
“I would not share my problems with a stranger,” I said flatly.
Marcelo didn’t respond immediately.
I felt it before I understood it. Something had changed.
Then his tone shifted.
Not charming anymore. Not casual.
Sharpened.
“How is this possible?” he said, slower now, as if testing the words. “Rafael ‘El Mencho’ Pérez is unmarried. How can you be his wife?”
My entire body went still.
The glass nearly slipped from my fingers.
Cold panic struck instantly, sharp enough to cut through the alcohol’s warmth.
I hadn’t told him anything about myself—only that I was married, without ever saying to whom.
So how—
Before I could finish the thought, something shifted behind me.
Quick footsteps.
Too fast to be casual.
A sudden scuffle—fabric brushing against fabric, a sharp movement in tight space.
Then Ramiro’s voice cut through the noise like a blade.
“How dare you steal her phone? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
The words hit like impact.
My stomach dropped.
I heard movement—Ramiro clearly had grabbed something.
A phone.
There was a faint metallic clink as it was snatched back.
Then I felt it.
A familiar weight pressed into my palm.
My phone.
My fingers tightened around it instinctively.
Only then did the realization fully land.
Marcelo had taken the phone from my pocket while I was distracted.
A sick twist formed in my stomach.
He wasn’t just flirtating.
He had been probing—waiting for the smallest lapse.
He had taken advantage of my blindness, not as an inconvenience, but as a vulnerability he had already decided to exploit.
My throat tightened as I unlocked nothing and simply held the phone, as if touching it could undo what had already been exposed.
Marcelo’s voice returned, but it was different now.
“Mr. Ramiro,” he said smoothly, as if nothing had just happened, “I believe you know the Italians are sending their men over, offering good money to anyone who can help them find a weak link to Rafael.”
He was no longer pretending.
“This woman here...” he continued, and I felt the words aimed directly at me now, “she is that weak link.”
My fingers tightened around the phone so hard it hurt.
“There it is,” he added lightly. “I can easily go ahead and tell them that the great Rafael ‘El Mencho’ Pérez is secretly married.”
The world around me seemed to narrow.
The music, the laughter, the glass, the stool—all of it faded into something distant and unimportant.
Weak link.
That was all I was.
A vulnerability in someone else’s structure.
Ramiro’s attention snapped toward me immediately.
His voice came sharper now, cutting through the tension.
“What!” he said, disbelief laced with frustration. “Loretta, you told him about your marriage with Rafael?”
The accusation hit harder than I expected.
I turned slightly toward his voice, jaw tightening.
“No, I did not,” I shot back immediately, sharper than before. “I only told him I was married.”
A beat.
My grip on the phone tightened again.
“He pulled the rest from my phone while I wasn’t paying attention.”
The words came out faster now, frustration bleeding through.
Because that was the truth.
“Marcelo,” Ramiro said evenly. “I know who you are.”
A brief silence.
“You can run, but I will still find you. And I will find your family. Everyone you care about.”
The words weren’t rushed.
They were placed.
Each one precise enough to be remembered.
“If you say a single word about Rafael’s marriage, you won’t be the only one who pays—everyone you care about will as well.”
A beat of silence.
Then, colder:
“Now get lost.”
The stool scraped sharply against the floor.
I flinched slightly at the sound, my hand tightening instinctively around the edge of the counter.
Marcelo had stood.
I could hear it in the movement of fabric, the way confidence returned in uneven fragments.
When he spoke again, his voice had no charm left.
Only greed.
“Instead of threatening me,” he said, slower now, like he was testing a different angle, “how about sealing my mouth shut with twice the money the Italians are offering?”
A low, disbelieving sound came from Ramiro.
“You are Spanish,” he growled.
The words carried something sharper than anger—betrayal, maybe, or contempt.
“How can you even think of selling your own people to the bastards Italians?”
A step closer.
I couldn’t see it, but I felt the pressure of it.
“Listen, Marcelo,” Ramiro continued, voice dropping further into something dangerously even, “you can’t blackmail Rafael Pérez. You should know that better than anyone.”
A pause.
The kind that feels like a blade being set down gently before being picked up again.
“You whisper a dime of this,” he added quietly, “and you will keep that silly mouth of yours shut for good.”
Silence followed.
The kind that makes people reconsider not just their words, but their survival.
Marcelo broke first.
“Okay, okay,” he said quickly, his earlier bravado crumbling into uncertainty. “Just stop looking at me like that—like you’re ready to bring me down.”
Another chair scraped back.
Faster this time.
Marcelo’s footsteps retreated into the crowd, swallowed immediately by the bass and laughter and artificial normality of the club resuming its shape around us.
My fingers pressed lightly into the bar for balance, the polished surface cool beneath my palm.
My breath felt uneven—not panicked, but alert in a way that made my body feel suddenly too aware of itself.
Ramiro’s presence shifted back toward me immediately.
“Loretta,” he said, voice still tight but now focused, “we need to leave. Now.”
I didn’t argue.
I nodded once, even though he couldn’t see it.
My heart was still hammering against my ribs, fast and unsteady, like it was trying to find an exit through my chest.
I slid off the stool carefully, one hand still on the counter for orientation.
“Let’s go,” I said quietly.
Ramiro guided me again, this time with urgency.
We moved fast.
The bar disappeared behind us as sound shifted again.
We stepped out.
Night hit my face immediately, sharp and real.
It might have seemed as though I had become part of the war the Italians were bringing into Spain—especially into Rafael’s world—without meaning to
We reached the car quickly.
Ramiro opened the door and guided me in without slowing.
I lowered myself into the passenger seat, the leather cold against my skin, grounding and real in a way my thoughts were not.
The door shut.